Commissario Balistreri Trilogy

Tripoli, 1960s: During the years in which post-colonial Libya fell prey to the sprawling greed of the West, Michele Balistreri suffered a succession of blows that would scar him for life. The death of his mother; the unspeakable horror that befell his best friend's family; his father's role in Gaddafi's ascent to power; and the innocent blood pact that would corrupt the course of his future.

In the 1960s, post-colonial Libya fell prey to the sprawling industrial greed of the West, driven by the discovery of oil. While the modern quarter of Tripoli, built by the Italians, was small and affluent, the rest of the city - like the rest of the nation - was left to fend for itself amid the arid, sandy stretches of North Africa. As tensions mounted between Eastern and Western ideals, terror began to supplant justice, and acts of religiously motivated violence began to fill some of Tripoli's darkest corners.