Whitefly|Abdelilah Hamdouchi
Whitefly, a crime novel set in Morocco, follows Detective Laafrit’s investigation into the deaths of four young men found floating in the Mediterranean. The dead are irregular migrants en route to neighbouring Spain, or that’s what Laafrit thinks at first until he discovers one of them was shot four times at close range. With private gun ownership banned in Morocco, the detective must not only find the gun and its errant owner, but also determine whether a connection exists between all four bodies.
That quest sends Laafrit on a cross-country adventure from his post in Tangier, precipitating meetings with various characters including a hash smuggler, a dancer cum police informant and a repentant human trafficker. As the case unfolds, he partners with a Spanish detective and agricultural engineer to uncover a nefarious plot to destroy Morocco’s tomato farms with whiteflies and cripple the country’s exports.
Abdelilah Hamdouchi’s book, while steeped in ingredients that characterise the crime genre, touches on corruption, sexism, abuse of power, and how globalisation plays out between Spain and Moroccan.
In a brief exposition on the failures of the justice system, Hamdouchi reveals Laafrit’s wife, Naeema, was sexually assaulted by policemen, a harrowing event that leaves her feeling helpless and alone knowing neither the state nor her family will take action. So traumatised is she by the experience that she begins wearing the hijab in public, even though she isn’t particularly religious.
In another glaring display of police abuse of power, Laafrit’s colleague threatens to sic the traffic police on a taxi driver who dared to ask for payment.
To be sure, injustices and acts of aggression committed by the police are symptomatic of a larger systemic problem that includes paltry pay, lack of training and poor working conditions.
“People who stayed up all night for the safety of the country and its citizens should have their own cafeteria to get reimbursed for meals while working,” reckons Laafrit after discovering a fast-food owner repaid him for a favour with a spoilt sandwich. “Even overtime wasn’t acknowledged or paid.”
Hamdouchi offers glimpses of Morocco’s complicated relationship with Spain, whose trawling vessels have depleted the fish population in Morocco’s waters and impacted its fishing industry, forcing Moroccans to make dangerous trips to Spain for work.
“Thousands of [Spanish] fishermen make their living off our shores while our children fatten their fish with their corpses,” laments a police inspector.
Sprinkled across the novel are timely references to the rampant exploitation of immigrants from low-income countries by human traffickers and legitimate businesses in richer nations driven to maximise profit. Case in point, Spanish farmers bribe law-enforcement officers to overlook their illegal employment of Moroccan farm hands, who have little to no legal recourse in the face of abuse due to their immigration status.
But even as Laafrit gathers enough circumstantial evidence linking the dead to the deliberate invasion of Morocco’s tomato farms, Whitefly leaves a mine of unanswered questions surrounding the lack of witnesses, a murdered associate, and a gun owner still-at-large, ending with the promise of a second instalment and a criminal investigation that is only just beginning.
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