Kismet, By Jakob Arjouni, trans. Anthea Bell

White suits, white faces: the Army of Reason that is eating Frankfurt alive

In the seedy Frankfurt underworld, immigrant communities prey on one another and seek to survive. It is the underside of a city that most British visitors know as a rich and civilised venue. But in this crime novel, Jakob Arjouni's Frankfurt has, since the end of the Cold War, become a town of countless semi-legitimate protection rackets. Some are moderate – those of the Albanians, Turks or Russians – and some go way over the top, as when the self-styled Army of Reason demands a huge sum from the owner of a small Brazilian restaurant.

In white suits and wigs, their faces coated in white powder, its silent lieutenants don't waste time. Clipping a proprietor's thumbs off with pliers is just a persuasive entrée. The group's notes ("Your monthly donation is now due") send ripples of fear through the city's minor entertainment venues.

Arjouni's anti-hero, Kayankaya, is a private eye of Turkish extraction who takes up the Brazilian victim's cause. His friend Slibulsky, a former drug-dealer turned ice-cream magnate, and the glamorous archaeologist Gina, aid and hinder his apparently doom-laden struggle.

Food is an important motif. The trail leads at first to the scary boss of a huge packet-soup empire. Then the twisting plot takes us on a hyper-speed tour of the city's lost and dispossessed, including a vividly angry picture of the fate of immigrants in Germany. No matter how long they have lived there, how much they participate in the city's life, every year they must crawl to the Aliens' Registration Office for permission to stay another year.

At a hostel for Croatian workers, Kayankaya encounters an abused and aggressive teenage girl searching for her mother, who has disappeared into the clutches of the Army of Reason. The foot soldiers duly display their devotion to rationality by bashing the detective with knuckle-dusters.

This is sharp, witty writing, packed with life and colour that bursts through in Anthea Bell's translation. One negative point: the caricature of an academic Islamicist, who explains what the Turks are like – individualist, proud, traditional, etc. Arjouni is out of date here. Middle-aged liberal scholars in this field are actually madly keen supporters of Edward Said's doctrine that we must not generalise about the Middle East. But this lively, gripping book sets a high standard for the crime novel as the best of modern literature.

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