The Sleuth of Baghdad

Inspector Chafik J. Chafik of the Baghdad police was the creation of Charles B. Child (1903-1993), the pseudonym of British author Claude Vernon Frost. As a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Airforce he worked with Military Intelligence in Iraq during the Second World War. Child wrote that Inspector Chafik was a composite of associates whom he met in the Middle East, whose "agile minds" could "wind through a complicated maze."

Beginning in 1947, the Chafik stories were some of the most popular features in Collier's Magazine, and many were reprinted in the annual Best Detective Stories of the Year. The stories about Chafik, his wife Leila, and his adopted son Faisal whom he found on the streets of Baghdad are superlatively constructed exercises in detection, but they have a more subtle level. They are also explorations of a culture and a time and place. The stories begin when the British still influenced Iraqi politics, and continue through the period of the monarchy and the country's attempts to identify its place in the world. Many years ago, Frederic Dannay ("Ellery Queen") lamented that there was no book collection of the Inspector Chafik stories. We are delighted to publish this First Edition.