In his new Costas Haritos novel, Greece’s beloved bestselling author satirizes the education business, his unmistakable tone combining pithy wording and Mediterranean wit.

Haritos and holidays? These two rarely seem to happen. But now, Costas and Adriani do take a trip to Epirus. At their hotel, they meet the Three Graces, a trio of vivid elderly Greek ladies, who are ready and willing to go on any excursion and happy to read anyone’s future from their coffee grounds – a rosy future, when it comes to the Haritos family.
But back in Athens a brutal case is waiting for the detective inspector. A professor has been poisoned. The academic world is rotten to the core. Rosy prospects? Sadly not here.

The German-Greek Andreas Makridis is found hanged in his Athens apartment. A short while later, a letter surfaces claiming that it was murder. Signed: The Greeks of the 1950s. What looks like a bad joke turns out to be deadly serious: further murders follow.
Who’s behind this ominous organisation? Crazy old individuals demanding a return to the values of days gone by? The new case leads Costas Haritos back and forth across a city, which is becoming more dangerous with every passing day. And the Commissioner discovers this on a personal level too: his daughter Katerina is attacked by a neo-Nazi of the Golden Dawn – in the city centre, in broad daylight.

In these stories, Detective Haritos is not the only one battling crime. An old painter who lived through war and hunger has to fight off hostilities and invents a game of fear. And finally, we meet a Greek and a Turk, two competing restaurant owners at daggers drawn. Yet when they happen to sit down at the same table to eat, they discover a few delectable similarities.

Seven stories about travellers and seekers, about displaced and homeless persons in Greece, Turkey and Germany.
The stories are highly topical yet timeless.
Including two crime stories featuring Costas Haritos – proving once again that dark days can only be survived by means of humour and solidarity.

Petros Markaris brings back the myth of the Odyssey to our times. These stories are about people travelling in unfamiliar territory, like the ancient hero, constantly facing new tests, listening to the siren song of hope and at the mercy of brutal opponents. Many Greeks shared the same experiences when they left their country, fleeing the dictatorship of 1967 and poverty. But does that make them more welcoming to the strangers washing up on their shores today?

His daughter Katerina is the apple of his eye: Costas Haritos would do anything for her. But now he cannot do anything. He has to stay out of it. Because Katerina is in danger, her life in the hands of terrorists. And if they were to discover that her father is a policeman, Katerina would undoubtedly be even more firmly in their sights. Are they Islamists? Palestinians? Chechnyans? For several days, there is no word from her kidnappers, turning all of those involved into nervous wrecks. At work, the Chief Inspector is busy with another case. A man working as a photographic model has been murdered. By a killer who has it in for homosexuals? But the case is not that simple. In his usual measured and thorough way, Costas Haritos attempts to get to the bottom of it. And he discovers a story whose roots lie deep in the past…

An earthquake on a Greek island: Some of the islanders are buried under the rubble, but a mysterious, long buried body resurfaces through the tectonic movement. Reason enough for Inspector Haritos to cut short his holiday in the Aegean and return to Athens with the body in tow. Another case is already waiting for him there: the murder of Koustas, unofficial king of the red-light district. Haritos buries himself in work, but soon he has to pay the price for not looking after himself: His heart goes on strike, and Haritos is taken to hospital. His only consolation: His daughter Katerina comes from Thessaloniki to be at his bedside. She too suffers from heart problems – if of a different kind …

This insight into the making of the film Eternity and a Day (winner of the ›Palme d’Or‹ at the Cannes Film Festival, 1998) reveals a whole new side to the crime writer Petros Markaris.

Featuring photos from the film set.

»I have no idea how to write a screenplay.«
»Don’t worry,« Theo said, »I’ll show you.«
From then on, we were inseparable.

On the inspiring friendship between the writer Petros Markaris and director Theo Angelopoulos.

Petros Markaris is known for his fast-paced crime fiction, Theo Angelopoulos for his epic auteur films. Together, the two men wrote the screenplay for one of Europe’s most important films, Eternity and a Day. The dialogue between them shows the interplay of humour and the serious side in the creative process – and how literature and great cinema come about.

Rich Greeks do not pay taxes. Poor Greeks are either outraged by that, or just despair about their own hopeless situation. But an unknown man does neither one nor the other: he takes action. With threatening letters, hemlock poison and arrows – in the name of the state. In crisis-shaken Athens, everything is upside down; the only place where things are calm is in the homicide division. There are no murders for miles around, just tedious paperwork. When a body is found on the ancient Kerameikos cemetery, Inspector Haritos is almost relieved. But not quite. He is under pressure: his boss has alerted him to the possibility of a promotion, so he has to avoid treading on anyone's toes. But Haritos is unable to avoid some uncomfortable questions. The dead man was a well-known surgeon who profited from mismanagement in the health care system. Everyone knew that. Even the anonymous tax collector, who has recently been blackmailing tax evaders – and, if necessary, resorting to ancient murder methods.

Left-wing politics are carried solemnly to the grave, in a funeral procession through the streets of Athens. What looks like a carnival parade is in fact the start of a new protest movement: the poor, uniting to make their voices heard. 
Is the murderer of the foreign investors among their ranks? Detective Haritos investigates and pricks up his ears when he hears the song of money all over the city.

Greece is experiencing an unexpected economic upswing – but where is all the money coming from?

Inspector Costas Haritos’ tenth case: when investment is just another name for money laundering.

A triumph for the Athens police: a civil servant’s murder is solved in no time at all. But Inspector Haritos has his doubts. Just like everything around him is too good to be true: people are enjoying life as if there had never been a crisis. Katarina, too, the Inspector’s daughter, wants to buy an apartment now that credit is easy to obtain.
But the fast money takes its toll: The murder of the civil servant was only the beginning.

Costas Haritos barely survived his last investigation. After three weeks in hospital, he is sitting at home, bored and grumpy, his wife Adriani in total command. His life has been reduced to a choice of chicken soup or noodles, of whether to tune into a quiz show or the evening news. But then something truly exciting occurs on that awful machine known as the television set: In the middle of an interview, a property developer well-known throughout Greece whips out a pistol and shoots himself live on camera. Costas finds himself suddenly awoken from his state of lethargy. How does a person get it into his head to orchestrate his demise in such spectacular fashion? It is not long before reading newspaper reports about the incident no longer satisfies Costas and he is on the move again. In a private capacity. For Costas is officially on leave during his convalescence, and a replacement has been appointed in his absence. But he is determined to show the entire world that they cannot do without the old Haritos quite so easily. The case leads him into the heart of modern-day Greece, to the construction sites for the Olympic village, to the modern companies behind facades of glass and steel, to little terraced houses in the suburbs whose inhabitants still make authentic Greek coffee and where bougainvilleas blossom in the garden. With his characteristic nonchalance, Costas Haritos roams through the labyrinth of modern Athens in his Mirafiori, under the baking sun – and in the shadow of the past.

This case puts Costas Haritos to a difficult test. Recently promoted to Athens’ head of police, for the first time he isn’t investigating alone. Instead, the homicide department’s new leader, Antigone Ferlekis, is responsible for the case of the dead archaeologist. A case with great explosive potential, because behind it lurks a group of American investors who want to bring a lot of money to Attica. And money is always a good motive for murder.

Athens during the pandemic. The shops are shut and many people have been pushed to the brink, so it’s hardly surprising that even the elderly are taking their own lives. Yet when Costas Haritos hears that a ninety-year-old has written ›Long live the Suicide Movement!‹ in his note, his ears prick up. Is there more to his actions than just despair? Haritos investigates – and gets to know the city of Athens and its inhabitants’ spirit of resistance in a whole new light.

Commissar Haritos would rather be out on the street with all the other Athenians, celebrating Greece's victory in the European football championships. But he is otherwise engaged. Everywhere he looks, there's something afoot – and even a detective of Haritos' ilk cannot enforce the law everywhere. Most of the characters in these ten stories have to do that themselves – in their own way. They have come from the Balkans in search of a better life: of work, money, a little bit of luck. Hardly any of them dares to dream, however, of finding a new home. Certainly not the young girl who is dropped off in the park every morning and picked up again each evening. And yet she manages to do precisely that of which most of the adults are incapable – to make contact with a local. A xenophobic old man, in whom, in spite of all his bitterness, something has remained: curiosity.
With a good dose of black humour and a complete lack of sentimentality, Petros Markaris paints the picture of a society in which the lines between good and evil, between justice and injustice, have become blurred. All that remains are people – left to fend for themselves.

Petros Markaris digs around in Greece's recent past – and unearths a lot of dirt. Are yesterday's heroes responsible for today's misery? Forty years after the uprising against the military dictatorship, someone wants to get what the vocal cries of the student movement promised all those years ago: bread, education, freedom. But the path is littered with corpses. Greece has returned to the drachma. Survival is the only priority: jobs are lost, wages unpaid – and a serial killer is targeting prominent leftwingers who shot up the career ladder after rising up against the military junta. Who is behind the killings? A right-wing extremist? Or someone seeking revenge for past transgressions? Inspector Haritos follows the killer's eloquent clues with his own special brand of stubbornness – despite the fact that he has had to make do without his own wages for the last three months.