Outlaw of Upper Egypt: A Literary Noir Crime Investigation into the Legend of Khatt al-Saeed

In Al-Mahrousa, everyone knows the outlaw's name. No one agrees on what he did.

When a village mediator is murdered and the case is folded neatly into an old blood feud, investigator Evan Drake follows the road south into a landscape ruled by family memory, quarry money, political protection, and fear sharpened into legend.

The official file points toward a mountain criminal. The missing statement points somewhere else.

As Drake tests the story against witnesses who have survived by saying less than they know, one question begins to threaten the people who benefited from the myth: what if the outlaw was not the author of the violence, but the name used to hide it?

The Outlaw of Upper Egypt is a full-length literary noir crime novel with an atmospheric Egyptian setting, a layered investigation, and a morally serious approach to corruption, revenge, and rural power.

For readers of international crime fiction, slow-burn mystery, and noir investigations where the legend is only the first suspect.