death of a stranger
Book ONE in the Vangelis Skouras mystery trilogy
Lieutenant Vangelis Skouras is chief of police for Lindos on the Greek island of Rhodes. After twenty years on the frontlines in Athens, he has recently returned to the island of his birth happy to adjust to a slower pace of life, regularly sample his mother's cooking, revisit the haunts of his youth and perhaps find a wife. He anticipates a tranquil existence keeping the peace in the bars and cafés during the tourist season and signing shooting licenses during the hunting one. But when the body of visiting English artist Elizabeth Denham is found on a local beach, those expectations are dashed and Vangelis finds himself caught up in a serious investigation.
The Englishwoman’s lonely death stirs something in his soul: an ancient sense of philoxenia, the sacred virtue of safeguarding the strangers in our midst. Determined that he will deliver justice for the stranger who died in his keeping, Vangelis manages to resist attempts by the powers in Rhodes town to take the case away from him and draws on his knowledge of the island and his old connections to uncover how and why Elizabeth died. His pursuit of the truth, however, leads him into direct conflict with the most powerful man in the village and his dreams of a peaceful life are shattered.
The patron Saint of the lost
Book Two in the Vangelis Skouras mystery trilogy
It is Holy Week in Greece leading up to the culmination of festivities at midnight on Easter eve. The tourist season is just beginning on Rhodes and Lieutenant Vangelis Skouras is busy keeping the peace between rival business owners in Lindos, while nominally engaging in the exploration of his soul Great Lent demands. His nemesis Kyriakos Ioannidis continues to be a thorn in his flesh, stirring local sentiment against Vangelis whenever he gets the chance, happy to employ any low method that comes to hand including whipping up xenophobia.
The theft of one of the island’s most beloved miracle-working icons during a vigil hosted by Vangelis’s family brings more trouble for Vangelis and becomes a new pretext for Kyriakos to portray him as negligent in his duties as chief of police. Vangelis must find the icon to restore his family’s reputation as well as his own and hang on to his job.
Fishing with fire
Book Three in the Vangelis Skouras mystery trilogy
When a local man is found shot dead at a newly constructed dam, Lindos chief of police Vangelis Skouras faces his greatest challenge yet. It is one thing to solve the riddle of what happened at the dam, quite another to resolve the feelings evoked by the killing and the old unfinished business it stirs up. Vangelis must face his own shadow if he is to find the perpetrator, all the while dealing with pressure from above and the island’s murder squad.