Finally a scifi book that's set in the Middle East with Arab/Islamic characters albeit influenced by Western thinking The only other fantasy book that I know off that's somewhat middle eastern in setting was R. Scott Bakker's The Prince of Nothing except the series was set between the Mediterranean and the Middle East with the plot paralleling the First Crusade. Glen Cook's The Black Company was also Middle Eastern in style and setting though the European influences were everywhere.
The Arabesk trilogy by Jon Courtenay Grimwood is set on a 21st Century Middle Eastern State probably like Dubai or Qatar - with characters too rich not to wear designer clothes even when killing people. The trilogy focuses on one character Ashraf Bey, a 25 year old prison convict in the US who's Upper East End journalist mother and his unknown father makes for one dysfunctional hero. His environmentalist mother ironically had his genes modified by Bayer-Rochelle [in reference to Bayer known for pesticides, gene, aspirin, Canesten and all the controversial GMO's of our period] to enhance both physiological and mental capabilities. Highly neglected by a globe-trotting single parent who's Greenpeace tendencies to hop for one environmental issue to another made for one lonely childhood . He ended up running away from his last boarding school and his mom.
Finally finding work on a US-based Asian mafia as a subpoena agent, he ended up being sent to prison for a crime he did not commit. 7 years of incarceration though made him train all the skills he neglected during his boyhood years. During a prison delivery, his guard suddenly gives him diplomatic papers and flight tickets and have him brought to the airport. Deciding to accept the offer to rather than stay and be killed by the people who sent him to prison, he finally reaches the Middle Eastern city El Iskandriya with 2 new information - he is a son of the Emir of Tunis and not some environmentalist backpacker, thus a possible heir to the throne and he is required to marry the daughter of the multi-billionaire the the vicinity. Between taking care of his nice and attempting to understand his fiancee, he ended up becoming a major suspect to the death of his aunt. Ashraf now has to find who killed his aunt or end up in jail again.
It doesn't sound like a fantasy novel, more like an alternate-history novel with a noir and cyberpunk elements on it but it is by far one of the more interesting reads if you're tired with the usual European medieval setting for standard fantasy - like Warhammer, Warcraft and almost any other book influenced by Tolkien. It has a lot of faults though, from too much flashbacks, erratic flow of time, weak cyberpunk section and a somewhat lucklaster ending. It feels like the writer is just following the standard process of writing the reluctant hero archtype with the flashbacks as the only modification on the format which is very irritating. Still its a good start - its not Neuromancer or Snow Crash level but it does try to find its way in the cyberpunk world.
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