Jeffrey Siger is a former Wall Street lawyer who turned to murder mystery thrillers over a decade ago and bases himself on Mykonos for most of the year. He is also known to Australian audiences for his role as a narrator on the acclaimed documentary, Mykonos: The Other Side.”

Siger has previously published nine bestselling novels set in Greece, based on his fictional no-nonsense Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis from Athens.

The last time Neos Kosmos sat down with Siger at Rhenia Mykonos Hotel, overlooking Tourlos Bay, he was already planning ahead to his tenth book. His previous efforts have taken him across Greece, including the majestic Lesvos, Patmos, Santorini, Syros, the Mani, but inevitably he is drawn back to Mykonos, his home away from the US.

Since our last meeting he tells me, “what a journey it’s been, highlighted this past year by The New York Times Sunday Book Review naming me as Greece’s thriller writer of record, and Library Journal selecting Chief Inspector Kaldis #9, An Aegean April (which is set in Lesvos), as one of the best of 2018.”

His forthcoming offering is The Mykonos Mob, set in his beloved Mykonos. The book that made his name, was of course Murder in Mykonos in 2009, which seems to sit at many Greek bookstores and newspaper stands during the tourist season every year, along with his acclaimed Assassins of Athens.

“In all honesty, I think The Mykonos Mob is my best book yet. The Mykonos Mob draws upon my thirty-five years on Mykonos watching that gem of an Aegean island evolve from its simple agrarian and seafaring roots into a 24/7 glitzy playground for the world’s rich and famous.”

The fiction begins for Athens’ Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis with a literal bang when a corrupt former police colonel who runs a protection racket on Mykonos is gunned down. Siger explains, “Kaldis comes face-to-face with top crime bosses on an island whose natural beauty and reputation as an international playground belies the corruption lurking just beneath the surface. Andreas’s wife, Lila, meets an American expat named Toni, a finder of stolen goods. As Lila and Toni bond over a common desire to mentor young island girls trapped in an exploitative culture, they soon find that their efforts to improve the lives of the girls they’ve come to care about intersect with Andreas’ investigation in ways that prove to be dangerous for all involved.”

Siger further tells me, “think #MeToo meets the Mob!”

The Mykonos Mob is out on 2 April, which sees the writer on a book tour across the US before returning to Mykonos.

For more information on the author, visit http://www.jeffreysiger.com/

*Billy Cotsis is the director of the documentary ‘Mykonos: The Other Side’