Parker Bilal writes crime novels with a detective most readers have never met before. Makana is a Sudanese refugee and former police inspector who works as a private investigator in Cairo. Parker Bilal is the pen name of the literary novelist Jamal Mahjoub. He has published two crime series, six Makana books and three Crane and Drake books. Here are all the Parker Bilal books in order, where to start and what kind of mystery to expect.
Parker Bilal Books in Publication Order: The Complete List
The reading order and the publication order are the same. Read each series from the first book, because the detectives carry their past and their losses from one story to the next. The years are the first UK publication dates.
The Makana Books in Order (Cairo)
- The Golden Scales (2012)
- Dogstar Rising (2013)
- The Ghost Runner (2014)
- The Burning Gates (2015)
- City of Jackals (2016)
- Dark Water (2017)
The Crane and Drake Books in Order (London)
- The Divinities (2019)
- The Heights (2020)
- The Trenches (2022)
That makes nine Parker Bilal novels. The latest release is The Trenches, and we have found no announcement of a new book in either series.
Where to Start Reading Parker Bilal’s Books
Start with The Golden Scales. It introduces Makana, his houseboat on the Nile and the Cairo he moves through, and every later book builds on it. The Makana series follows real history in order, from 1998 to 2006, so reading out of order spoils both the story and the politics.
If you prefer a modern London police story with a faster, thriller pace, start with The Divinities. You do not need the Makana books for it.
The Makana Series: A Sudanese Detective in Cairo
Makana was a police inspector in Khartoum. He fled Sudan when a military regime took power, and he lost his wife and daughter in the escape. In Egypt he is a political refugee, living on a rundown houseboat and taking whatever work he can get. As an outsider, he sees things the Cairo police choose not to see. Each book moves the story a few years forward:
- The Golden Scales, set in 1998: the corrupt businessman Saad Hanafi hires Makana to find the missing star player of his football team.
- Dogstar Rising, summer 2001: boys are found murdered in the backstreets, and Makana is drawn in through threatening letters sent to a travel agency.
- The Ghost Runner, 2002: the death of a teenage girl takes him to Siwa, an oasis town in the Egyptian desert near the Libyan border.
- The Burning Gates, 2004: an art dealer hires him to find a painting that went missing from Baghdad during the US invasion.
- City of Jackals: a young man called Mourad Hafiz seems to have dropped out of university, and nothing about it is simple.
- Dark Water, 2006: British intelligence sends Makana to Istanbul, where he learns that his daughter may still be alive.
War, political corruption and the refugee experience run through the whole Makana series. Egypt is not a backdrop here. It is the reason each crime happens.
Is the Makana Series a Cozy Mystery?
No, and we want to be honest with cozy readers about it. The Makana books are dark private investigator novels. There is violence on the page, and the police are often part of the problem. So why is this series on a cozy mystery site? Because it gives you something rare in crime fiction. Makana is a detective from the Muslim world, written from the inside by an author who grew up in Khartoum. If that is what you are looking for, see our Muslim fiction authors page, where the gentler, cozy titles are collected too.
The Crane and Drake Series by Parker Bilal
The second series moves to London and is published by Canongate. In The Divinities, two bodies are found on a building site in Battersea. Detective Sergeant Calil Drake, known as Cal Drake, needs the case to repair his reputation. He is paired with Dr Rayhana Crane, a forensic psychologist. Both of them carry memories of Iraq.
In The Heights, a severed head is found on the London Underground. In The Trenches, Drake has left the police, and he goes undercover to trace a young man who left to fight for Islamic State. These are psychological crime thrillers, closer to a police procedural than to a puzzle mystery.
Who Is Parker Bilal? The Author Behind the Pseudonym
Parker Bilal is the pseudonym of Jamal Mahjoub, a British-Sudanese writer. He was born in London in 1960 to an English mother and a Sudanese father, and he grew up in Khartoum. He later studied geology at the University of Sheffield. He has lived in the UK, Denmark and Spain, and now lives in the Netherlands.
As a literary novelist he writes about Sudan, Africa, exile and identity. Parker Bilal is the name he uses for crime. You can read more about his life and work on our Parker Bilal author page.
Are There Standalone Novels by Parker Bilal?
No. Every book published as Parker Bilal belongs to one of the two series. His standalone novels and his non-fiction appear under the author’s own name, Jamal Mahjoub. The best known non-fiction book is A Line in the River: Khartoum, City of Memory (2018), part memoir and part history of the city. For a complete bibliography, see the author page linked above.
Popular Parker Bilal Books
- The Golden Scales, the first Makana book and the usual starting point.
- The Ghost Runner, longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award.
- The Trenches, named a Times Best Crime Book of the Year.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Parker Bilal novels are there?
Nine: six in the Makana series and three in the Crane and Drake series.
What is the correct reading order for Parker Bilal’s books?
Read the Makana books from The Golden Scales to Dark Water. Read Crane and Drake from The Divinities to The Trenches. The two series do not connect, so you can start with either.
What is the latest Parker Bilal book?
The latest release is The Trenches (2022), the third Crane and Drake novel. The last Makana book is Dark Water (2017).
What should I read next?
For more detectives with a Muslim background, try the Esa Khattak mysteries by Ausma Zehanat Khan. For a truly cozy option, read the Detective Aunty series by Uzma Jalaluddin. You can browse every series on the site on our series page.