First Line: Gul was dreaming of Mahnaz when her phone rang.
A call in the middle of the night from the Sindh police makes Dr. Gul Delani think that they've finally found her missing niece, Mahnaz, who's been gone three years. Delani, a talented curator at the Museum of Heritage and History in Karachi, is consumed by grief and buries herself in her work.
But there is no news of Mahnaz. As one of the country's leading experts in archaeology and ancient civilizations, Delani has been summoned to a narcotics investigation in a remote Pakistani desert region. She can't believe what she finds: a mummy-- life-size, seemingly authentic, in a sarcophagus decorated with symbols from the ancient Achaemenid Empire in Persia.
The discovery is too good to be true and too precious to leave in the wrong hands. Delani will stop at nothing to get to the truth even as her work puts her in the middle of a dangerous conspiracy and even threatens to interfere with her search for Mahnaz.
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Although I was fascinated by the archaeology and the history contained in The Museum Detective, it really wasn't my cup of tea. With the current political turmoil here and abroad, I find myself having little patience with the restrictive lifestyles of more traditional Muslim women, and that is what Dr. Gul Delani has dealt with most of her life. It's been tremendously difficult for her to work her way up into her position at the museum in Karachi. Moreover, I wondered why she was still so determined to find her niece and why her parents seemed eager to write the girl off.
The angst piled higher and higher as the story veered from archaeology and history to drugs, the illegal antiquities trade, corrupt police, and other people in power who couldn't be trusted. Perhaps if I had been in a different mood, I would've enjoyed this book more, but I didn't. I just couldn't warm to Delani or care about her search for her niece.
The Museum Detective by Maha Khan Phillips
eISBN: 9781641296571
Soho Crime © 2025
eBook, 337 pages
Amateur Sleuth, #1 Dr. Gul Delani
Rating: D+
Source: Net Galley
Thank you for the honest review. I’ve wished for this book but its a long wait.
ReplyDeleteThe only good thing about those long waits is that I always have something on my shelves to read!
DeleteI can understand a book not working well for you. I've had that a few times recently and I'm actually trying to decide where I need to turn next in my reading. I recently picked up a book by Carol Goodman, read it, and had thought that her way of including Gothic-type elements in her stories would be satisfying, but though I finished, it won't be my favorite of her books. I'm reading a family/romance-type book now to sort of cleanse my palate. Ha!
ReplyDeleteHope that works, Kay! I finished a book that I liked, A Council of Dolls, then picked up another, non-fiction one, Medicine River, about much the same topic. My niece and I had gone to the Heard Museum the day before, and I just couldn't handle the subject matter at that time. I needed something lighter.
DeleteSorry you didn't like this one more. But sometimes you're just not in the right mood for certain books; happens to me all the time.
ReplyDeleteI'm certainly not a stranger to it. ;-)
DeleteWell, another one you read so I don't have to. Sorry it was such a dud.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't a complete dud because I did learn a lot from it.
DeleteThat's good.
ReplyDelete