THE BUTCHER OF CASABLANCA

The Head of Casablanca’s CID fights an epidemic of murders and dismemberments that seem to be the work of more than one perp.

On his way to Marrakesh with his family to congratulate his daughter Atiqa and meet his latest grandchild, Mohamed Bineesa, universally known as Detective Hanash (which means “the Snake”), is yanked back home by an urgent call from no less than Mohamed Alami, chief of police. The remains a waste picker has found in two plastic bags at the bottom of a dumpster can’t be identified because they’re limited to “just the lower limbs…minus the genitalia.” Since the killer has left no physical evidence that might identify either himself (herself?) or the victim, Hanash and his squad are left waiting for the next move, which takes the form of another equally horrific murder, and another, and another. Every time the police succeed in wrestling a clue from a new corpse, the crime at hand turns out to be the work of a copycat rather than the original killer, and at times it seems as if everyone in Morocco must be taking advantage of the well-publicized crime spree to rid themselves of personal enemies. Resolving to overlook his daughter Manar’s budding romance with his right-hand man, Inspector Hamid, a good cop who drinks too much, Hanash eventually gets his perp. But it takes a long time (months, not pages), and the results are anything but satisfactory.

Notable for its glimpse of a world rarely presented in crime fiction and its refusal to offer the genre’s expected pleasures.