The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zeharat Khan

First Line: Esa Khattak turned his head to the right, offering the universal salaam at the conclusion of the evening prayer.

Detective Rachel Getty knows something isn't right when her trusted boss Esa Khattak asks her to look into wealthy Christopher Drayton's death-- and then scarcely says another word about it. Khattak's team handles minority-sensitive cases, and Drayton's case doesn't fit. Then she learns that Drayton may have been a war criminal with ties to the Srebrenica massacre of 1995. The ramifications are huge, and now she understands why Khattak has been tip-toeing around.

If Drayton was a war criminal, the suspect list could be huge, and the murder investigation itself could have lasting effects throughout the community. It needs to be solved, and solved quickly.

I do not find it strange that Ausma Zehanat Khan chose the framework of a crime novel to write this haunting story of the atrocities carried out in Bosnia. What is crime fiction but the quest for justice? Scattered throughout the book are quotes from survivors' testimony to what happened all along the route to Srebrenica where so many innocents were massacred. These quotes become the Greek chorus of The Unquiet Dead. They serve to remind us how important it is to prove whether or not Christopher Drayton is a war criminal in order for true justice to be done.

As far as I'm concerned, Rachel Getty is the star of this book. Her abusive father, her runaway younger brother, her intelligence and drive-- all of this has come together to turn her into a good, intuitive police officer. I want to see more of her. On the other hand, I didn't much care for her boss, Esa Khattak. As seen here in The Unquiet Dead, Khattak's head is much too easily turned by a pretty face. Since at any given point in time females can make up at least 50% of a suspect list, that's a handicap I'd rather a major character not have. And speaking of Khattak's little foible, there are two important female secondary characters whose portrayals border on caricature.

But as irritated as I was with Khattak and those two women, I was immediately pulled right back into the story by Rachel Getty and Ausma Zehanat Khan's Greek chorus of voices. I have read books before where the dead were supposed to speak, supposed to cry out for justice, but this is the first time for me that they actually did. These voices horrified me. They made me weep. They made me despair-- once more-- for the human race. And they made me demand that Rachel Getty and Esa Khattak find them justice.

This is an unexpectedly powerful book that has me looking forward to the next in the series, The Language of Secrets.
      

The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zeharat Khan

ISBN: 9781250055118 

Minotaur Books © 2014

Hardcover, 352 pages

Police Procedural, #1 Khattak and Getty mystery

Rating: A+

Source: Purchased from Book Outlet  


 

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

Title: People of the Book
Author: Geraldine Brooks
ISBN: 9780143115007
Publisher: Penguin, 2009
Paperback, 400 pages
Genre: Fiction
Rating: A+
Source: Purchased at The Poisoned Pen.


First Line: I might as well say, right from the jump: it wasn't my usual kind of job.


Australian rare book expert Hanna Heath has been asked to conserve the beautifully illuminated fifteenth-century Sarajevo Haggadah, a priceless Hebrew manuscript thought to have been destroyed during the fighting in Bosnia.

As many times as I've worked on rare, beautiful things, that first touch is always a strange and powerful sensation. It's a combination between brushing a live wire and stroking the back of a newborn baby's head.

As Hanna examines each page with great care and wonder, she discovers a series of tiny artifacts left behind in the manuscript: a fragment of an insect's wing, wine stains, salt crystals, and a white hair. These microscopic bits are the keys to unlocking the centuries' old mysteries of the Sarajevo Haggadah and the catalysts that will change Hanna's life forever.

As the insect's wing, then the wine stains, then the salt and hair are analyzed, we learn the history of the ancient book and the lives of the people who had it in their care. Anyone who has ever picked up a book, caressed its cover, and ruffled through its pages wondering about the identities of previous owners or all the places that book has been will absolutely love People of the Book. As Brooks takes us through the centuries, each time period and each caretaker comes to vivid, aching life.

I was deaf and blind to everything around me as I read this book. It's not the first time author Geraldine Brooks has done this to me, and since her latest book (Caleb's Crossing) is on its way to my door, I don't think it will be the last. She is one of the supreme storytellers of her time.

What Hanna does the last time she's with the Haggadah made me cry and made me smile. It also made me think. Around the world today books are under attack from technology, economy, ignorance and indifference. How many of us would be willing to do whatever it takes to ensure their survival?

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