With Δε λες κουβέντα, a modern noir novel, Makis Malafékas takes you on a journey to Athens in the heart of a heatwave. 

From The Go-Between to the Great Gatsby, heatwaves have long been used as literary framing devices to build tension and create a kind of lawlessness. Malafékas’ Athens is no different. The overbearing heat and crowded pavements force the city to move in a different motion, giving the feeling that anything and everything can happen. 

Meet Michalis Krokos, an author who wants to publish a book about John Coltrane. An Athenian living in Paris, he is pulled back to the city when a painting goes missing and he must search for an elusive truth. 

Krokos visits the city as Documenta, one of the largest international exhibitions of contemporary art, is taking place. Exceptionally, the festival has relocated from Kassel to Athens, bringing throngs of  tourists and art lovers. 

This is an Athens awash with hipsters. An Athens of high-class hangouts and dingy dive bars, of elegant exhibitions and paranoid taxi drivers. An Athens of Airbnb’s and kidnappings and murders. 

Malafékas deftly deconstructs the pretentious intellectuals who hum around the Athenian art scene.  As the pressure in the city rises to boiling point, this Malafékas thriller moves at an electric pace, leaving the reader racing to read its conclusion. 

A detective novel to devour. A cool read for the summer.  

Ancient Greek literary works need no introduction. But modern Greek literature has also produced several masterpieces, not least the works of two Nobel Prize laureates – Giorgos Seferis and Odysseas Elytis.