[citation needed] The Costas Haritos series of books (twelve novels and one collection of short stories, as of 2019) are very popular in several European countries such as Greece, Germany, Italy and Spain.

[citation needed] Their main hero and first person narrator is a detective in the Athenian criminal police in his fifties, with a squabbling, fairly uneducated, and TV-addicted, but dearly loved wife, an aspiring, but stubborn, law student daughter, and an unpleasant, brown-nosing boss.

The modern Athens of rampant air pollution, ugly concrete buildings, constant traffic jams, and hordes of annoying tourists, is the backdrop of the first four novels (the fifth is set in Istanbul).

This was the first book in the "Crisis Trilogy" (Τριλογἰα της Κρἰσεως), of which the second, "Termination" (Περαἰωση), first came out in 2011; the third, "Bread, Education, Liberty" (Ψωμί, Παιδεία, Ελευθερία) was published in 2012.

In addition to the Inspector Haritos novels, Markaris has written a non-fiction work entitled "Η Αθήνα της Μιας Διαδρομής" (literally "The Athens of a Single Route").