Best Books of 2018 in Crime Fiction by Library Journal "Fans of Adrian McKinty's Sean Duffy books and other police procedurals that handle violence and political issues with black humor will welcome this outstanding crime novel." ― Library Journal STARRED review The beautiful Greek island of Lesvos, birthplace of the poet Sappho, and for centuries an agrarian paradise famed for anise-flavored ouzo and tasty sardines, sees its serenity turn into chaos as the world watches boatloads of refugees daily flee onto its shores from Turkey across the narrow Mytilini Strait. Mihalis Volandes is one of Lesvos' elite, the patriarch of a storied shipping clan. He's weathered many changes in his long life, and when a government policy accelerates the surge of refugees onto his island, he rises to prominence in relief efforts he sees as growing increasingly ineffectual. One evening, after working to stir up support for his breakthrough plan to strike at the heart of the lucrative refugee trafficking trade, he returns to his mansion in darkness―only to fall victim in his own garden to a swishing sword. A refugee-turned-local-aid-worker is found at the scene, splattered with Volandes' blood, and swiftly arrested by island police. Case closed―or would be, if young Ali Sera were not working with SafePassage, an NGO (non-government organization), headed on Lesvos by American Dana McLaughlin. McLaughlin is having none of Ali's arrest. Within hours the phone rings in the Athens office of Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis, and she's requesting that Kaldis take over the investigation. Volandes was a prominent citizen and the crime particularly gruesome. Could it be terrorism or something else? But whether Ali is guilty or framed, Andreas can't ignore a powerful motive for the murder. Volandes' daring plan, if implemented, would soon shut down the cash-generating refugee-trafficking pipeline between Turkey and Lesvos. And so, we're off on a nail-biting ride with Kaldis and his team through Byzantine island politics, deteriorating diplomatic relations, and a world on fire with intrigues and more brutal deaths. This ninth Andreas Kaldis thriller once again links modern Greece to its ancient past, the powerful grip of myths upon its people, and cutting edge issues of societal change affecting our world at large. JEFFREY SIGER is an American living on the Aegean Greek island of Mykonos. A Pittsburgh native and former Wall Street lawyer, he gave up his career to write mystery thrillers that tell more than just a fast-paced story. His novels are aimed at exploring societal issues confronting modern day Greece. Visit him at jeffreysiger.com. An Aegean April A Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis Mystery By Jeffrey Siger Poisoned Pen Press Copyright © 2018 Jeffrey Siger All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4642-0945-1 CHAPTER 1 The northeastern Aegean island of Lesvos, a place of quiet beauty, storied history, and sacred shrines, had long drawn the attention of tourists, though never quite the hordes of off-islanders that descended each summer onto some of its much smaller, but far more notorious, Cycladic neighbors to the southwest. Its reputation as the bird-watching capital of Europe, possessing the greatest array of wildflowers in Greece and one of the world's largest petrified forests, drew a different sort of tourist. Lesvos ranked as the third largest of Greece's islands, behind Crete and Evia, with roughly one-third of its eighty-six thousand inhabitants living in its capital city of Mytilini, an alternative name used by many Greeks for the island. Most Greeks, though, knew very little about modern Lesvos and thought of it, if at all, as little more than the serene agrarian home of Greece's ouzo and sardine industries. That abruptly changed in 2015. Virtually overnight, thousands of men, women, and children fleeing the terrors of their homelands flooded daily out of Turkey across the three-and-a-half to ten-mile-wide Mytilini Strait onto Lesvos. Tourists, who'd come to holiday on the island's northern shores, found themselves sitting on the verandas of their beachfront hotels, drinking their morning coffee, watching in horror as an armada of dangerously overloaded boats desperately struggled to reach land. Inevitably, tourists stopped coming. But not the refugees, for they saw no choice but to come, no matter the predators waiting for them along the way: profiteers poised to make billions of euros off the fears and aspirations of desperate souls willing to pay, do, or risk whatever they must for the promise of a better, safer existence. In 2015, more than a half million asylum-seeking migrants and refugees passed through Lesvos, looking to make their way to other destinations in the European Union (EU). The chaos of the modern world had spun out a rushing storm of profit for human traffickers of every stripe, and Lesvos sat dead center in its path. * * * The sea had always been Mihalis Volandes' friend. He'd been born to it,