The Unquiet Dead

Rachel Getty & Esa Khattak #1

by Ausma Zehanat Khan, Peter Ganim (Narrator)

Detective Esa Khattak is in the midst of his evening prayers when he receives a phone call asking that he and his partner, Detective Rachel Getty, look into the death of a local man who has fallen off a cliff. At first Christopher Drayton’s death—which looks like an accident—doesn’t seem to warrant a police investigation, especially not from Khattak and Rachel’s team, which handles minority-sensitive cases. But it soon comes to light that Drayton might have been living under an assumed name, and he may not have been the upstanding Canadian citizen he appeared to be. In fact, he may have been a Bosnian war criminal with ties to the Srebrenica massacre of 1995. And if that’s true, any number of people could have had reason to help him to his death.

As Rachel and Khattak dig deeper into the life and death of Christopher Drayton, every question seems to lead only to more questions, and there are no easy answers. Did the specters of Srebrenica return to haunt Drayton at last, or had he been keeping secrets of an entirely different nature? Or, after all, did a man just fall to his death in a tragic accident?

In her spellbinding debut, The Unquiet Dead, Ausma Zehanat Khan has written a complex and provocative story of loss, redemption, and the cost of justice that will linger with readers long after turning the final page.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Canada, Mystery Thriller, Historical Fiction, Crime, Audiobook

12 pages, Audible Audio

First published January 13, 2015

About the author

Ausma Zehanat Khan is a British-born Canadian living in the United States, whose own parents are heirs to a complex story of migration to and from three different continents. A former adjunct professor at American and Canadian universities, she holds a Ph.D. in International Human Rights Law, with the 1995 Srebrenica massacre as the main subject of her dissertation. Previously the Editor in Chief of Muslim Girl Magazine, Ausma Zehanat Khan has moved frequently, traveled extensively, and written compulsively. Her new crime series debuted with 'Blackwater Falls' in November 2022. She is also the author of 5 books and 1 novella in the Esa Khattak/Rachel Getty mystery series, including the award-winning 'The Unquiet Dead'. And she is the author of The Khorasan Archives fantasy series, beginning with 'The Bloodprint'. She has also written a middle grade non-fiction book called 'Ramadan'.

Reviews

[Maddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply superb. Harrowing and compelling, defying genres, The Unquiet Dead left a mark on me and I'll be thinking about it for a long time. It's a crime thriller, it's a historical fiction, it's a war story. It's beautiful and heartbreaking.
Dark and brutal at times, moody and bleak, I couldn't stop reading, even when at times it left me struggling to breathe.
I'm at a loss to find words to explain how beautiful that book is despite it's horrific subject. So powerful and haunting, The Unquiet Dead is a stunning debut.
Highly recommended!

[Mackey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Unquiet Dead has moved me emotionally like no other mystery ever has before and is, quite possibly, one of the best books I've read. I will admit to being an historian and the amount of research that Khan invested in this book is staggering. The mystery involvess the death of Christopher Drayton. Was it accidental, murder or even suicide that led Drayto over the Canadian bluffs. Even more mysterious is the question of Drayton's true identity. It falls to Detective Rachel Gerry and her boss, Esa Khattak, to discern the truth. What soon becomes apparent - no spoiler here - is that Drayton is a war criminal from the horrific Bosnian Muslim slaughter of the 1990's. This, of course, greatly widens t h e field of suspects...or does it?
Throughout the book, Khan has interwoven testimony, narratives, Quranic verses that were included in the documentation presented before the United Nations War Tribunal. These accounts are difficult but necessary to read in order to fully understand the book itself. For those misguided critics here on Goodreads who claim it is manufactured, there is an appendix at the end of the book with all the references clearly marked. As an American I had NO idea about this Muslim slaughter just I am sure there are many westerners today who are turning a blind eye toward Palestine, Kashmir, Burma, Yemen......
Yes, we read mysteries for pleasure and this is definitely deeper than most, however, I also read for knowledge and with incredible book I absolutely came away far more educated than I was before.
If possible I not only would recommend this book, I would make it required reading in our high schools. FIVE PLUS STARS.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this series debut by Ausma Zehanat Khan, the reader faces some of the most traumatic storytelling imaginable of a set of recent historical events, offset by a Canadian police procedural that does not wane at any point. Khan writes with a passion and develops a powerful piece that is as much about Canadian society as many other locations around the world. One part of the Toronto Police Service is the Community Relations branch, responsible for working with and solving crimes within the city’s numerous minority groups. Its elite team is Pakistani-born Esa Khattak and city local Rachel Getty. Khattak, well-versed in policing, has experience dealing with the minority community, which is enriched by being a practicing Muslim. He is able to educate Getty, while also allowing her to flourish on her own, as she has grown up in Toronto and see it change over the years. Word comes that Khattak and Getty are to attend the home of Christopher Drayton, who is said to have fallen off a cliff outside his home. An apparent suicide, neither Khattak nor Getty can surmise what brings them here, particularly since Drayton is no minority and the fall seems quite straightforward. Adding to the mystery, there are a number of letters in Drayton’s safe, which have been handed over by his somewhat flighty fiancée. Each piece of correspondence is quite abrasive and the writer seems keen to express violent tendencies, forcing Khattak and Getty to wonder if there is more to the life of Drayton than meets the eye. Further investigating leads to some troubling leads, as well as a handful of potential suspects, each with their own views on Drayton. While Khattak and Getty both face personal adversity throughout the novel, they come to realise that the victim may have a life known to few and a past full of deception. Getting to the heart of the matter, Khattak cannot help but challenge his superiors to better understand why this case was tossed in his lap. It is only then that the full impact of things is realized and the case spirals to new and nefarious levels, while echoing at the highest levels of the Canadian Government. A brilliant series debut, which allows me to see why it received the accolades it did. Highly recommended to the reader who can handle heart-wrenching topics enveloped in a police investigation, as well as those who love procedural novels with a Canadian flavouring.

It was a morning scan of Goodreads that brought Ausma Zehanat Khan to my attention and left me scrambling to get my hands on this series. This debut opens with an interesting spin and the focus of crime in Toronto left me wondering if it would be another ‘all praise Canada’s self-proclaimed best city’ or something I could recommend to others. Khan takes Canadian multiculturalism and mixes it with the subjugation of minorities in such a way that the reader cannot help but want to learn more. The two protagonists come from completely different backgrounds, but mesh together so well. Esa Khattak is a Muslim who has a great deal of police experience and had witnessed minority disenfranchisement first hand. His desire to set things right is only part of his impetus for being on the Community Relations team, though he is happy to educate his much younger partner about the ways of the world for those not so well-off. He struggles with his faith, his personal beliefs, and his need for facts throughout this novel, though is far from rigid in his views on all subjects. Rachel Getty’s life has been anything but easy, though it differs greatly from that of her partner. Getty has seen much in her young life, particularly with an abusive father who tried to pigeonhole her in a certain way and a brother who’s gone missing after finding solace in drugs. Getty seeks to learn from Khattak but also brings her own perspective to events, such that she can be teacher as well as pupil. She tries to come to her assigned tasks with an open mind in a city (and country) that remains fixated on the Anglo-Saxon way of living. There are a handful of other characters whose depiction adds layers to the story that I cannot put properly into words. I will hold back, so as not to spoil some of the narrative that weaves its way through the well-established chapters, but the reader should pay particular attention to those who do not seek the limelight and listen to the story they have to tell. The narrative was amazing and I was drawn to the story from the opening pages. Twists and turns throughout, as well as detailed descriptions of events that many could not even fathom fill the pages of this book. Some will run away and call ‘not for me, too violent’, though it is something that cannot be hidden and no reader should ostrich themselves. The uncomfortable is the only way that Khan can truly tell the tale of of the unquiet dead. Those who listen are better off for it, in my humble, Canadian opinion.

Kudos, Madam Khan, for such a riveting tale to open this series. I cannot wait to see what themes return and which new perspectives you have to offer in the second novel.

Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

[Trish · Rating 2 out of 5]

Everything about the concept of this debut novel intrigued me: a disgraced and demoted second-generation Canadian Muslim police investigator, Khattuck, finds himself investigating the suspicious death of a man who turns out to be the Bosnian Serb war criminal, Dražen Krstić. Krstić had changed his name to Christopher Drayton and had settled into a life of comfort in Toronto. The NYT had just such a story leading their (3.1.15) Sunday edition last week, so we know it is entirely plausible that Bosnian war criminals have settled into new, lucrative lives in the U.S. and Canada, lost in the shuffle of refugees from the former Yugoslavia.

The author, Ausma Zehanat Khan, is a British-born Canadian with a Ph.D. in international human rights law, specializing in military intervention and war crimes in the Balkans. Khan has an undeniable street cred when detailing the conflict in Yugoslavia and its aftermath. Therefore it pains me to say that The Unquiet Dead does not really work as a novel (or at least a good novel). This will not stop anyone interested in the topic from having a look at this, but it may prepare you for a difficult fiction-reading experience.

All the ingredients for a long-lived policier are there: an interesting and troubled minority investigator and his unlikely sidekick, a twenty-something white woman called Rachel. Her background has the requisite complexities: childhood of poverty, abusive father, estranged brother, crazy mother. But somehow the whole doesn’t hang straight. Characters lack verisimilitude and dimension; conversation has an invented quality. For instance, what twenty-something police investigator earning a good wage would continue to live with mad parents on the off-chance a brother who had left seven years before could only contact her there? I heard Khan’s explanation but it doesn’t work. If the boy had wits enough to survive seven years in the wilds of the world, he should be able to trace her whereabouts in her home town of Toronto.

Quotes of statements from reports, letters, tribunals, witnesses, the Qur’an head the chapters and are interspersed throughout the parallel story of the investigation and are given fuller explanation in her Notes at the back of the book. Some chapters feature long seemingly remembered but, I suspect, invented passages that bear witness to the events in the torn Yugoslavia. The horror of the events there are undeniable. I found it difficult to keep my skittering eyes on the page. Since we have heard something of these events, reference to them alone strikes one with terror and fear. Since fiction is suspect in what it reveals, perhaps this information would be better presented elsewhere.

Perhaps Khan thought we wouldn’t be interested if she published a separate book of nonfiction about the events at Srbrenica. She raises some very relevant and thought-provoking issues: was the international arms embargo to the Bosnian territorial units responsible for the horrific intensification of violence because one side had an inability to defend themselves against the side that had the former Yugoslav army matériel? One might make an opposite argument: that supplying weapons to one side or the other could intensify the violence of the fighting. Another issue she touches upon is the inability of Immigration departments in the West to locate and bring to justice known war criminals and fugitives from justice. These are worthy subjects of study and discussion. They can fit in a fiction, but everything else has to work as well.

The successful writing of fiction is a difficult enterprise. What surprised me was not that Khan did not succeed, but that she came so close to managing it. The ingredients for a brilliant policier are there, including an important and relevant subject of investigation. She just needed the example of a few more classics of the genre, to get help with conversation and depth of character development, and to trust her readers to have a sense of discomfiture when the word “Bosnia” is mentioned. We’ll get the real details of the events in Srbrenica elsewhere if she mentions them tangentially rather than head-on.

I have long mused on the difficulty of bringing real-life events by known scholars to the world of fiction. One wonders why the authors make the switch. If it is because they want to inform us mostly, I think they might run into difficulty. If it is because they really want to write fiction—important, relevant fiction—the endeavor will take all they have and more. I love important, relevant fiction, so I am going to encourage them. Brava, Khan!

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars for a mystery about a suspicious death. This is book 1 in a series. I have already read book 4 in the series and I have decided to read the rest of the books in the series. The blurb sets the scene:
" Despite their many differences, Detective Rachel Getty trusts her boss, Esa Khattak, implicitly. But she's still uneasy at Khattak's tight-lipped secrecy when he asks her to look into Christopher Drayton's death. Drayton's apparently accidental fall from a cliff doesn't seem to warrant a police investigation, particularly not from Rachel and Khattak's team, which handles minority-sensitive cases. But when she learns that Drayton may have been living under an assumed name, Rachel begins to understand why Khattak is tip-toeing around this case. It soon comes to light that Drayton may have been a war criminal with ties to the Srebrenica massacre of 1995."
There is a Bosnian community of refugee Bosnians in the Toronto area. When Getty and Khattak begin to investigate, he does not tell her about the possibility that Drayton may have been a war criminal. He wants her to to examine the man's house and the death scene with a neutral perspective.
He does finally tell her when she realizes that he is keeping something from her. They do solve the mystery. Each chapter begins with a quote from testimony of victims from the war crimes tribunal. There are descriptions of mass murder and rape. This book is not for the squeamish. Rachel and the Bosnians express anger at the fact that the UN let these massacres happen and did nothing.
That is not quite true. When the war started, the UN imposed sanctions on the warring parties, including Bosnia, unfortunately. The UN set up a Sanctions Assistance Mission(SAM). Its headquarters were in Brussels and it was run by the EU. The countries bordering Serbia were asked to enforce the sanctions. They protested, saying that we just got out from almost 50 years of communist repression. Then the UN asked member countries to send Customs officers to assist these countries.
I was a volunteer SAM(Sanctions Assistance Monitor) for 2 months in Bulgaria. I spent 1 week training in Washington, DC before going to Bulgaria. I was told that sanctions were squeezing the Serbian economy, with inflation running at 2% per day. After the war was over, it was found that Serbian leaders were printing paper money on a grand scale, causing severe inflation. They pauperized the common Serbians to enrich themselves. Even while I was in Bulgaria in 1993, there was talk of bombing Serbia. In 1994, the US began to press NATO and the UN to authorize a bombing campaign. France was adamantly opposed because of concern that their peacekeeping troops in Bosnia would be targeted by the Serbian army. Not until after Srebrenica did the US bomb Serbia, which led to the Dayton peace accords.
After the peace deal, I received a letter of commendation from US Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin. Although the sanctions did not stop the massacres, sanctions were the only thing that all the countries in NATO and the UN could agree on. I was told during training that every time the possibility of bombing was brought up, the end result would be tighter sanctions.
I am now retired, but I believe that my time as a SAM was important, if only to show that bombing should have started sooner.
I worked with Customs officers from Bulgaria, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Luxembourg. I also worked with police from Spain, Germany, France, Italy, and Netherlands.
One quote, describing Melanie, fiancee to Drayton: "She had the confidence of a woman who knew that the objections of any rational male could be softened by a comprehensive glance at her cleavage."
This was a library book.

[Anne Bogel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rounded up from 4.5 stars.

This debut is the first in a series that's now five books strong, and I'm working my way through the rest. The Canadian procedurals center the investigative team of detective Esa Khattak and his assistant Rachel Getty, who are often called upon to investigate crimes in the Muslim community of Toronto, navigating cultural and political divides to do so.

I beg you, do NOT read the spoiler-laden reviews of this book, or even the jacket copy! I'll just say that the pair is called in to investigate the seemingly accidental death of a wealthy local man, and it slowly becomes apparent that this crime's roots go deeper than the detectives could have dreamed.

I know a lot of Louise Penny fans looking for more series with the same flavor. This is a good one.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Unquiet Dead has been on my radar for ages, as I’ve seen it on several best audiobook mystery lists. The book follows Detective Rachel Getty and her boss, Esa Khattak. The duo investigates culturally sensitive cases. They’re surprised to be handed a case of a wealthy, white man’s fall from a cliff near his house, that is, until it turns out the man wasn’t who he had been pretending to be. Instead, it would appear he was a war criminal tied to the genocide in Bosnia.
The book takes almost as much time introducing us to Getty and Khattak as it does exploring the possible murder. I loved these two main characters, with all their strengths and foibles. The story is told from Getty’s POV, as she learns more about her new boss. The story explores justice, tribalism and prejudice, loss and redemption, love and trust. It examines the power of culture vs. the culture of power.
It’s an in-depth story, much more than the typical police procedural. It’s got some interesting twists and I loved how it all came together.
Because this tackles the war crimes of Bosnia, there are some parts of graphic violence. I will definitely be seeking out further books in this series.
I really enjoyed Peter Ganim’s narration.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this excellent debut novel, Ausma Zehanat Khan presents a story with crime old and possibly new; a mystery of identity and possibly murder or was it accident; reminders of genocide as well as the need for and cost of justice; social ills at home and abroad. She works with a very bold pen and does it very, very well. The plotting and characters are well done and eminently believable. The prose is equal to her task.

In one example of the beauty and elegance of her prose, I've selected a sentence from late in the novel when answers seem hidden from the investigating officers..


A steely rain slanted against the horizon, the lake
beyond arranged in little thrusts of chaos against the
shadowy outline of the shore, the white bone of the
Bluffs at a treacherous distance. (loc 4421)


Within this sentence are reflected the mental and emotional confusion of everyone involved. The elements reflect the characters perfectly at precisely the exact moment. Then there are shorter sentences that sing: The first fresh sails on his personal ship of joy began to unfurl. (loc 3931)

The terrible background to the plot, though, is the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia in the 1990s. Does it connect? And if so, how? There are excerpts from haunting testimony you won't soon forget used purposefully throughout the novel.

I highly recommend this book to all who like contemporary mysteries with historical import combined with excellent writing and research.


A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley for the purpose of an honest review.

[Renae · Rating 1 out of 5]

For me, what this book comes down to is the fact that the author doesn’t really show a lot of talent for fiction writing. She has impressive credentials and clearly knows what’s what in terms of Bosnia and Srebrenica, and I like that she brought those things into her debut. However, The Unquiet Dead is poorly written, sloppily constructed, and very troubling in relation to female representation and the attitude adopted toward all female characters. I wanted to like this book, but appreciation for the ideas behind the text does not at all solve my problems with the glaring faults I found in The Unquiet Dead.

IT’S A MYSTERY WHAT THE MYSTERY EVEN WAS

The opening chapter is a passable hook. Inspector Esa Khattak gets a call from a friend about a dead body. Khattack works with crimes where race/ethnicity comes into play, and somehow this death (murder?) comes under his purview—for reasons the reader, and Khattack’s partner, Rachel, doesn’t know. So, yeah: mysterious death that’s giving the handsome and well-mannered Inspector Khattack an angst fit. Good lead.

Except Khan never explains what has Khattack so upset. For 20% of the book. Seriously? For one-fifth of the text, the reader doesn’t even know what’s going on. Neither does protagonist Rachel, for that matter, which is even more troublesome. What kind of person doesn’t inform his partner about a current investigation? What kind of person just goes along with her parter’s cryptic moods? Though in regards to that last one, there are way more pressing questions to be asked about Rachel and her character.

RACHEL: THE ULTIMATE WOMAN-ON-WOMAN HATER

My biggest issues with The Unquiet Dead stem from Rachel’s characterization and her interactions with the other female characters. I still think the book would be pretty awful if Rachel weren’t in the picture, of course, but Rachel got all my gears grinding and spurred a lot of Twitter-ranting.

In short: Rachel hates other women. Always, without exception. There is not a single other woman she meets over the course of the text that she doesn’t immediately hate on sight. Don’t believe me?

She was everything that a strong, square-built, hockey-playing female police officer most definitely was not. Pretty, petite, girlishly feminine without being cloying. Chic, expensively dressed even for a night at the pub, her russet scarf and body-hugging dress a perfect complement to her figure and coloring. Instead of the babyish tones her squeal of delight had seemed to indicate were at hand, her voice was low-pitched and sweet.

Rachel hated her on sight.

Like I said.

For the most part, it seems that Rachel hates other women because they’re prettier than her. Rachel doesn’t like pretty women, and she also doesn’t like “provocative” women—how dare women be upfront and honest about enjoying sex! She’s highly insecure and, honestly, not the most logical person ever. She lives with her abusive parents, even though she’s an adult, on the off-chance that her runaway younger brother will try to contact her. Because obviously he won’t ever find her unless she keeps the same address, right?

But I think what’s worse than Rachel herself was the way Khan supports her anti-woman views by the portrayal of other women in the text. Except for Rachel, every woman in The Unquiet Dead is extremely beautiful, predatory, “slutty”, and capital-E-Evil. There are no “positive” depictions of women in this entire book. (I certainly don’t consider Rachel, who sex-shames and body-shames and judges without hesitation, to be a positive depiction.) If these were well-rounded, dynamic “Evil Women” (à la Gillian Flynn or Alissa Nutting), I wouldn’t be upset. But these female characters are all shallow and two-dimensional, relying on stereotypes that are never expanded upon.

I suppose like Rachel, the reader is just supposed to hate all other women on sight?

FICTION, OR AN UNSOUGHT HISTORY LESSON?

Beyond Rachel’s varying issues and her tremendous internalized misogyny, The Unquiet Dead is didactic as hell.

I get that Bosnia is a major point of interest for the author, and I don’t have any problem with Khan bringing it into her fiction. But the info-dumping and “mini lessons” that permeated this book were clumsy and dull. There is a natural way to incorporate current events and/or history into fiction, but this novel does not showcase it at all.

At one point, Rachel goes to some other person and says something the equivalent of “What? Women who were in Bosnian rape camps were traumatized? I never would have guessed! Please explain how this happened!” and is then told, at length, what exactly went on in a Bosnian rape camp…which, what? (Granted, this is Rachel speaking, but still.) It was such an obvious entryway into the author’s “teaching mode” and I could not have been more displeased. Sure, more people should be informed about Bosnian rape camps, but the way in which the author went about it was all wrong, in terms of keeping up momentum within a work of fiction.

A lot of other reviewers have suggested that Khan would have been better off writing a nonfiction book about Bosnia, and I agree. It’s not that her expertise is off-base or unwanted, it’s that it’s inappropriately applied.

GOOD PREMISE, BAD EXECUTION

As I said, Ausma Zehanat Khan has a lot of great ideas and a real passion for her subject. But based off this book, I don’t think crime fiction is the proper place for her to share that. Genuinely moving moments are ruined by sensationalized, histrionic language, and the plot threads are haphazardly woven together. At the end, Rachel “guesses” the solution to the mystery, and is then rewarded by a lengthy monologue in which the antagonist reveals their motivations and plans. Everything is overwritten and overemphasized. This is really not how you would go about crafting a good mystery novel, and taken in combination with the book’s other major failings, it’s just too much.

The intention behind The Unquiet Dead is a good one, but in reality it falls flat in every regard. I am most unimpressed with this.

[Liz Barnsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly powerful novel, setting a mystery within the context of the war in the former Yugoslavia – really hitting home about what happened there and creating a group of unforgettable characters. This had me in tears an awful lot of the time.

I, of course, am old enough to remember that time but being removed from it, watching images on the television that never really got to the heart of the matter, you don’t really get how godawful that war was, how many lives were lost, what went on there. Reading “The Unquiet Dead” was an education in that respect, a masterclass in how fiction can hit home in ways that reality often cannot.

At the same time The Unquiet Dead is an entertaining and well plotted mystery although I never really felt like I was reading a “whodunnit, more a “who are they” which applied to all the characters including our main protagonists Getty and Khattak. Khattak is really the most intriguing creation, in this first of the series we have only just scratched the surface which bodes well for the rest. Getty is equally intriguing but on different levels – as a duo they were endlessly fascinating.

Using a clever multi layered style of storytelling, wherein we find out some hard truths about life on the ground in the former Yugoslavia whilst the war was raging and present time as Khattak and Getty dig into the life and death of the man known as Drayton, you are drawn deeper and deeper into some dark, dangerous and horrifying realities. Every character is finely drawn, the author teasing out the detail, slowly revealing the heart of them and through that the answers finally emerge. Often the narrative takes your breath away, the ultimate resolution leaving you melancholy and contemplative – to call this novel thought provoking isn’t really good enough but its all I’ve got.

Incredibly emotional, ever riveting, completely immersive, The Unquiet Dead is one of those books I want to make everyone read, absorb and appreciate.

Highly Recommended.

[Rincey · Rating 4 out of 5]

HOLY COW. That was good.

For a full review check out: http://youtu.be/sSmlEzXCGCg

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Christopher Drayton has died. Did he accidentally fall off the cliff or was he pushed? How much do we really know about Christopher Drayton? What would lead him to this cliff? Was it an accidental death? Or was it homicide?

The setting for Drayton’s death is Canada. These are daunting questions for the police investigation being led by Esa Khattak and his assistant, Detective Rachel Getty.

But what is so compelling and heart-full about this story, isn’t just the police procedural look into the death, but what lurks below the surface of the crime.

This story touches on the brutality and terror of war crimes, the Bosnian conflict and how it affected the people touched by those horrific experiences. But the author tells it with such a slow, intense, sensitivity.

The story may be difficult for some, and it takes a while to kick in, but once it does…it is haunting, compelling and emotionally spellbinding up to the last page.

I believe this debut novel will move readers.

[KnowWhatILike · Rating 2 out of 5]

After I had finished this book, I kept wondering "Why?".

Why did the author use such a totally unlikely detective story to showcase the horrors at Srebrenica? If I gave examples, I would be revealing too much of the story, but I ask anyone who has read the book to consider how probable this mystery story is. To me, this lack of verisimilitude took away from the real story which the author wanted to tell - the genocide of Muslims in Bosnia.

I also question why the author chose to make one of the characters such a common floozy (there is no polite way to describe her). She could have fit perfectly into some penny novella. Was this to add humor to the book? Certainly not, given how cruel she was to her daughters and former husband. Many in the Muslim world tend to think of Western women as loose so maybe this character was meant to cater to this perception. I found that she cheapened the story.

My final question concerns why Macmillan did not do a better job of counseling the author and editing the book. The book could have been so much better if these flaws had been addressed. It is heartening that many reviewers appear to like to book and are, thus, learning about Srebrenica, but I think that the book could have reached a much wider audience if it had been better written and edited.

[Emmkay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the Toronto setting of this crime fiction novel - the Scarborough Bluffs is a great, atmospheric spot on which to focus a tale. It’s an ambitious first novel that engages with Bosnian war crimes. Not many police procedural novels finish up with an extensive notes section evidencing the author’s research. But I found the characterization and the ‘police procedural’ aspects thin (and some of the ways Khan writes about women strange and cartoonish), and the writing style was stretching too much for atmosphere and lyricism, and not quite finding it. 2.5.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love to read really smart, well written mysteries! They can be difficult to find sometimes but when you do, it's amazing! I would recommend this novel to fans of Tana French as there are similarities between this novel and Tana French's novels in terms of their being intelligent and well written mysteries.

Complex characters, a heartbreaking story, high quality writing and great pacing made this one stand out to me! I loved every moment of it and can't wait to see what is to come from Ausma Zehanat Khan in the future. If it's anything like this, I'm in!

This is a murder mystery in Canada that also explores the tragedies of the Bosnian War. There are two investigators (Rachel Getty and Esa Kahattak) who work in a special division of the Canadian Police that handles minority-sensitive cases. They are called to what appears to be an accidental death of a Canadian citizen. The story runs from there.

I really didn't have much knowledge of the Bosnian War and the Srebrenica massacre before this novel. I found it fascinating AND heartbreaking. I felt compelled to do some googling and learn more in order to better understand the background. That is always something that I love in a book - when it sends me to the internet for more details!

This novel is smart, well written and just plain GOOD! The plot is intricate and well conceived. The tension throughout the novel is perfection. I cannot recommend this one more highly. This is definitely one to put on your TBR. It comes out 1/13/2015 so make sure you have a reminder in place so you don't miss it!

NOTE: I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[DeB · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A complex and at times heartbreaking novel, whose true focus is the devastation of the Bosnian War and the mystery of Western "neutrality", as war crimes of savage proportions were perpetuated on the Muslim population by Serbian militia. The death of Christopher Drayton, who fell from a steep cliff, is the impetus which introduces us to detectives Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty, with Toronto Community Policing. The list of suspects is lengthy and at times convoluted (perhaps intended to increase suspense and provide more "red herrings?). The back stories of the detectives were fragmented within the plot and subplots, unfortunately. I think that Khan was attempting to cover a huge area beyond the mystery, dealing with morality, ethics, grief, ethnicity and her main characters suffered development as a result. However, the writing was almost lyrical at times, when describing the museum, and showed true talent and sensitivity. I enjoyed this novel on many levels. I did wish that it's ending had been stronger. After reading my way through the desolation of war, the narcissistic cruelty of a vain mother, ghostlike survivors, ruined friendships and so on, I really needed the satisfaction of retribution whether it reflected on the war or not. I hope that Khan writes again with this series, because there is so much that is excellent to build on.

[Kylie H · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is one that I have been meaning to read for some time. It is set in Canada and involves a police officer Esa Khattak, a muslim of Pakastani descent. He runs a unit of people who get landed with cases that may involve certain ethnic groups. He is at first puzzled as to why the death of a Christopher Drayton is handed to him and his partner Rachel Getty. However, as the story unfolds it appears that the death may be linked to Bosnian war crimes.
Rachel is the officer who we learn far more about, she is still living at home with her parents, her father having been a police officer but who is also a violent bully. The thing that keeps her at home is the hope that her runaway younger brother may one day come home.
The story recounts narratives from the Bosnian war and these are very confronting. The scale and horror of the atrocities carried out during this war are absolutely astounding.
Although I was able to work out the key suspects quite early, I still enjoyed the way the book played out.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Patriotism, nationalism,' she said impatiently. 'Call it what you wish. Mine the only flag, mine the only way. All else is inferior, trample it underfoot. Despise it, detest it.'

Harrowing and upsetting, Khan takes an unflinching look at how the horrors of 'ethnic cleansing' in 1990s Bosnia reverberate into the present. Using the structure of a crime novel, she presents us with a disturbing amount of real-life testimony, of guilt confessions from the later war crime hearings, and material from UN reports cleverly woven into her fictional narrative. Her indictment lies not just with the brutal Bosnian Serb militias but also with the UN and the world that allowed these atrocities to take place.

Set in Canada, the book also presents us with an intriguing new detective duo in Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty, both with rounded personalities and back-stories, and the potential for development that I hope later books open up in more depth. Both characters avoid cliché (though I felt Rachel's family background was slightly over-loading the book) and there are delicate nuances in their, and other, relationships throughout.

Khan's writing is unobtrusive and doesn't get in the way of the huge story she's telling, and the whole book feels like it's been put together with thought, skill, passion, controlled anger, and respect for the people whose story is being told here.

Even if I got to the solution ahead of the book (I clearly shared Rachel's early reading matter that gave her the clue!), that doesn't matter here: the novel is so much more than a detective story.

Do be aware that there are some very dark scenes here which take us into the heart of the massacres and rape camps that characterised the conflict (genocide?) in Bosnia - but they're never gratuitous, however horrific and hard sometimes to read, and drawn from actual testimony which is meticulously referenced at the end.

Both a gripping, emotionally-wrenching novel and a crucial document of what have been designated crimes against humanity, this is stark and brutal but a must-read.

'The tragedy of Srebrenica will haunt our history forever.'

Thanks to No Exit Press for an ARC via NetGalley.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Up until a few years ago I had never read any books like this. By that I mean the books that are crime fiction but also break your heart. The majority of the books that I had read regarding the atrocities of war were committed during WW2. The Unquiet Dead which is based around events that occurred in 1995, 50 years later, show that nothing had changed. Men, women and children losing their lives due to ethnic cleansing. I remember the events that happened in the former Yugoslavia. I had seen reports on the news regarding the war crimes trials. But none of those reports or most of the earlier reviews I had read about this novel prepared me for how devastating I would find parts of it. Mainly anything that was written in italics was distressing, especially if you did, like I did, which was to read the explanation at the back.
Whilst these parts were important to the novel they didn’t impact on the storyline concerning why Christopher Drayton fell to his death. Nobody appeared to know his true identity, everybody who was connected to him thought his death was an accident but the detectives weren’t convinced. They had a dilemma though, if it was retribution should the culprit suffer more by going to prison.
Both of the detectives had troubled personal lives, some of which isn’t revealed. There was mention of a previous case, which made me think I had missed a book, but this is labeled as book one. Esa, especially is an enigma. his character is very complex and at times I did struggle to connect to him. Rachel, though, I liked immediately. Another character I really liked was Hadley. Her relationship with the repulsive ‘Mad Mel’ and her devotion to her father and sister was wonderful to read.
It was a book that I needed to read in complete silence. I needed to soak up every word and feel every emotion, whether it be anger, guilt or sadness. Parts are devastating to read but there was also humour from Hadley and loyalty from Nate and Audrey.
A different novel for me but one that I am glad I read and I am eagerly looking forward to reading the second book in the series soon.

With thanks to the publisher for the copy received.

[K.J. Charles]

Crime novel based around the genocide of Bosnian Muslims in former Yugoslavia. This is a very heavy subject to hang a detective story off and I'm never sure about the use of real and recent atrocities in fiction. Undeniably it's good to bring things to readers' attention - especially things like this, which much of the West and the UN basically looked away from at the time (a key point of this story). And it's certainly handled with as much sensitivity as possible here, and with an almost clinical, definitely lawyerly approach.

But given that background, I found it impossible to care who killed the Serbian war criminal as long as *someone* did, or to sympathise with the detectives trying to catch his killer. Which, again, is part of the point here: what is justice in this case? Obviously, the genre demands that the detectives attempt to catch the murderers, but given the amount of the story that's accounts of the atrocities perpetrated against Bosnian Muslims and the power of that witness, the detective plot element inevitably takes a back seat.

The detectives are a good pair--sophisticated Muslim man, lower ranking and awkward white woman from a miserable family background. There's some intriguing subplots there that remain unresolved, presumably for later books in the series.

I have to say, there are also a couple of women characters that I found seriously problematic--a selfish Botox gold digger and a sexy manipulative bitch. They came across as stock caricatures of Bad Women in a way that just didn't fit in a book that was otherwise thoughtful, nuanced, and full of understanding. I was wondering how much of that was Rachel's POV, as she's clearly marked up as having a lot of issues with other women, but if so it didn't quite come off for me. Still, first novel: I'll be interested to see how this develops.

[Maggie Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Unquiet Dead is a mystery novel tackling a very dark part of human history. Though it provides a powerful critique of the Bosnian war, it fails to deliver a satisfying novel. The foundation of the novel is meant to center on Rachel Getty and her superior Esa Khattak. While Khan hints at interesting character motivations, I never really bought into the things that she claimed the characters were supposed to be. They did not seem particularly close which was unfortunate since other characters kept telling me how important the two were supposed to be to one another. There were also too many mentions of actions that occurred before the events of this book that were never really explained, leaving me to wonder several times if I actually bought the first in the series. Esa in particular felt flat, and his behaviour in this first book made it hard for me to understand how he was supposedly so well-respected. I am not suggesting that characters must be flawless, but in the first book of a series, give me a sense of who this solid, capable character is before you send him off the rails. Otherwise all the comments about how his behaviour is unusual don't mean much to me.

I enjoyed the whodunit, though the pacing was off. the police work seemed almost drifting with neither character paying much attention to the case. I know this was part of the plot, but if you're writing a mystery/crime novel, there's a delicate balance to hit. The conspiracy was great, and the tension between different conceptions of justice. I just wish there had been less feels for potential significant others and more actual police work.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent police procedural set in Toronto. The characters were human and believable, and the mystery intriguing. When the murder victim is a bad person, how vigorously should justice be pursued? If you're Sgt. Rachel Getty, it's all the way. I enjoyed the setting and characters, but found it hard to cope with the details of the Muslim genocide in Bosnia. Important book.

[Kirsty ❤️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an interesting and eye opening debut. Really thought provoking. At the time of the Bosnian crisis I wrapped up in my own misery and while I know there was an atrocity I remember it mostly as headline news rather than the full details. So as well as a gripping murder mystery I found the book to be so educational. Like WW2 these are war crimes that should never be forgotten and even in fiction it's possible to work towards bringing knowledge. So for that thank you.

The storyline itself - a man falls to his death and as there are links to Canadian minorities (Muslim survivors of the above atrocities) Khattak is brought in to dig deeper into the dead mans life when they discover he may not be the mild mannered arts lover his neighbours believed. There are such an array of characters in here. Everyone is unique and there's enough to want to see how they develop in future books especially with each other.. The back stories give us a break for the norm with Khattak as the link to minority groups in Canada and his terrible taste in women! And his
partner Rachel Getty still living in an abusive parental household ad yet to really start to live. I found it easy to enjoy these characters despite the bleak storyline and I hope to read more.

For me personally two additional new experiences; a Muslim detective (although again despite the storyline the religion is there but doesn't define him. And also Canada.

It started a bit slow but soon picked up pace and I managed to read it quite quickly. It's gripping and one of the rare occasions where you really know the victim got what they deserve and do we really care whodunit?? (now there's another thing to think about!)
So gripping, complex and thought provoking. An excellent debut

Free ARC from netgalley

[Monica · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is two different stories - the one that is well done is the harrowing account of the atrocities surrounding the massacres at Srebrenica and other Bosnian towns in the nineties.

The other is the investigation by two Toronto Community Policing officers Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty, into the case of a prosperous man who has fallen, perhaps accidentally, from a bluff and died.

The man is revealed to be a war criminal who has been living in Toronto for years under an assumed name.

My problem with this part of the story has a lot to do with the grotesque female characters who take up far too much time and space in the story - Khattak's flamboyantly predatory and promiscuous former partner Laine Stoiecheva, Melanie Blessant,the ludicrously awful narcissistic bimbo fiancée of the dead man, and the too good to be true Mink Norman, museum director with a shadowy past.

They were distracting and beyond annoying, and pretty much spoiled the book for me.

[Lorna · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan is a stunning debut novel with Detective Esa Khattak and his partner Rachel Getty. They are called to investigate the death of Christopher Drayton thought to be an accidental fall from a cliff, or was it? As the investigation evolves, there are questions about the victim's identity and his ties to Bosnia and the ethnic cleansing that slaughtered tens of thousands of people during the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 during the height of the Bosnian war. This is the first of a series of novels featuring Detectives Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty. I just became aware of this author at a Reader's Forum sponsored by our local independent book store where Ausma Zehanat Khan was one of the featured authors. I will definitely read more of her novels.

"Time had taught him to view his faith through the prism of compassion: when ritual was sacrificed in pursuit of the very values it was meant to inspire, there could be no judgment, no sin.."

"He heard the cellist's melody again: mournful, insistent, accusing. It had sounded as a requiem in the streets of Sarajevo."

"Survivors are quiet because they are haunted, because they still cannot accept what happened."

"This is the Bosnian lily, a native plant. It was a symbol on Bosnia's flag at the time of its independence from Yugoslavia. The coat of arms that bore the original fleur-de-lis is a much older symbol, It represents the arms of the Kotromanic family, who ruled Bosnia during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries."

"The unquiet dead and those who mourned them."

"The Adagio attributed to Albinoni. Vedran Smailovic played it on his cello in the streets of Sarajevo."

[Alison Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know, I read the glowing blurbs from the NYT, WaPo, LA Times, etc, on this book and it's that old cliché of "did we read the same book?" again.

Okay, I'll start with the (very few) positives. I absolutely appreciate the author wanting to bring more awareness and understanding about the Bosnian war and the genocide of thousands of Muslims in Srebrenica and elsewhere. This is recent history (1995) and yet I'd imagine most people outside of that area and who were not directly impacted by it know very little about it. This happened before the internet was really A Thing, and while it was certainly covered in the news at the time, it just hasn't taken hold in the general public's consciousness. I mean, I know I didn't learn fuck all about it in school, even though I was in high school at the time. This was a brutal, horrifying campaign, and it's something people ought to know about, so I do appreciate Khan's attempt to make that happen and to include voices of refugees from the war.

I also liked the implication that it doesn't matter what outward changes a person might make - evil is as evil does, and repentance cannot be falsely obtained through pretending to be someone other than the monster one truly is. (Trying not to give spoilers here, heh.)

However. That's......about it. Mostly I found this book at times ridiculous, at others implausible, and on the whole fairly poorly constructed and written.

First off, holy lord, this author has some kind of massive fixation on breasts, and specifically large breasts, and more specifically large breasts attached to a woman character who we are clearly supposed to hate as much as our protagonist Rachel does, partly because of said large breasts. Melanie, the (ostensible) fiancé of the man whose death Rachel and her partner Esa Khattak are investigating, is one of the most cartoonishly-written female characters I've ever come across, and her boobs take center stage. Nearly every time Melanie is on the page, we get some comment about her large chest (including the author comparing them to "giant lumps of unbaked bread") alongside snide, slut-shaming descriptions of her body in general, her clothes, makeup, hair, etc. Khan has a serious issue with girl-hate.

And in fact, none of the characters here felt fully realized to me at all. Khattak was the only one who came close, but because the story is told almost entirely from Rachel's third person POV, we aren't given the chance to see the depth of Khattak's character. I rarely say this, but I wish the dude had been our narrator/main POV! Rachel was a blank slate and honestly kind of dim for a detective, except for when she had some kind of psychic flash of intuition near the end that we're given no explanation for.

There's also a bizarre element of child pornography randomly introduced that felt totally unnecessary, shoehorned in, and honestly like it was just there to be either titillating or to convince us of how Bad the Bad Guy was, as though we fucking needed that. It was gross and weird, and also totally left hanging - proving that it didn't need to be there in the first place.

The resolution to the mystery was...okay, I suppose, though still left some things unanswered. Overall, I found this to be mediocre at best as a mystery, poor as a novel in general, and a bit of a mish-mosh that needed a stronger editing hand. I do hope that people gained some knowledge and insight about the Srebrenica massacre from this book, but I also think the author ought to have just written a nonfiction text about the subject.

[Denise · Rating 2 out of 5]

I expected to love this book: a Canadian police procedural examining the horrors of the Bosnian genocide, written by a Muslim-Canadian woman who is an expert in human rights and Balkan war crimes, subjects I find grossly underrepresented in literature. Alas, the shallowness of most of the characters-- especially the women-- tired me. I was intrigued by the crime, liked the detectives (more rounded-out characters) but could not get past the flat characters. This would be a great recommendation for mystery readers who like to learn about history, readers interested in the Bosnian genocide, or readers wanting to see more Muslim characters. But be wary of recommending it to readers who need well-developed characters.

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

The long term effects of war crimes upon individuals and the disinterest of countries who stood by form the backdrop of this excellent story and the impetus behind the murder of a wealthy man.
The characters are well-drawn, from the investigators Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty, to the suspects. While I had an idea of who had committed the crime, the author did a fantastic job of describing the heartbreak and the horror of those who survived the genocide of Muslims in Bosnia (I had to stop reading several times during the reminiscences of the story's survivors.)
This was a relatively simple mystery which raised interesting ethical questions; the complexity of this story has me intrigued about the further cases of Rachel and Esa.

[Sahaana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ausma Zehanat Khan cannot write compelling mysteries.

Alternate title: Why does Ausma Zehanat Khan hate women?

Other alternate title: Stop telling us things, and start showing us instead.


When I first heard of this book, I was excited to read it. A mystery novel about a Muslim lead in Canada written by a woman of colour? Hell yes, sign me up! I was looking forward to learning more about the Bosnian War, which Khan clearly has immense expertise in, as well as a good mystery novel with nuance and thrill.

I got none of that.

Instead, what I did get, was a poorly executed mystery novel, hastily written scenes stuffed to the brim with exposition, so much telling and not enough showing, and pages and pages and PAGES of misogyny. I am rarely uncomfortable while reading a book, but the misogyny - and how casually it is portrayed - truly unsettled me.

The mystery was honestly completely useless. It was clearly not the author's center focus. It was merely a framing device for her true intent: to discuss the atrocities that occurred to Muslims during the Bosnian War. In my opinion, she could've better done that by either releasing a historical fiction - possibly starring any of the numerous unnamed or partially named characters in the vignettes before chapters - or by releasing an anthology containing each of the vignettes she had written at the beginning of each chapter, fleshed out and given the respect it deserved. They were the more compelling parts of the book, and I found myself bored as we were transported back to the present time and back to the mystery of the book. The ending – the answer to the mystery – also lacks the impact that it should’ve had. Quick note for beginner writers: if you feel the need to reference another more famous mystery novel when solving the mystery, you aren’t a good mystery writer. You shouldn’t have to point out the similarities yourself. Yet another way the author tells us things instead of doing the work to show them instead.

The decision to make Rachel the main pov character (in third person, of course) was a poor writing decision. I understand that Khan's intent was to make her the audience proxy, so we could learn with her about the war. This decision ended with just pages and pages of exposition from characters who knew more than her. Rachel's personal backstory is also completely pointless and uninteresting. I found her more unlikable the more we learned about her. Her women-hating tendencies (immediately hating Audrey Clare for being a beautiful woman in tight clothing, despite Audrey being one of the kindest characters in the cast; her hatred and jealousy of Mink Norman for being beautiful and catching Khattak's eyes), put a sour taste in my mouth. Rachel hates every single woman in this book - the only two female characters she allows positive thought towards are the children Cassidy and baby misogynist Hadley, who echoes just as much vitriol towards women as Rachel does. Hell, Rachel even views her mother - an abused woman married to an alcohol - in a negative light. She sees her as pathetic, weak, quiet. And when she discovers her mother has known all along where her brother was, she immediately begins to view her as shrewd and cruel.

I knew something fishy was up the moment Khan decided to write the father, an abusive alcoholic who beat his son so violently that he ran away as a teenager, as a gruff man with some semblance of a heart once he stopped drinking. Rachel is so willing to accept this new attention from her father, but views her mother as cruel and mean. She even tells him where her brother is - what a stupid move! Your brother ran away to get away from his abuser and the moment your dad showers some sort of positive attention to you, you tell him about your brother??? You reveal this information to his abuser? What kinda cop are you?!


Which leads me to my next point: does Khan even know how detectives work? Time and time again. neither Khattak nor Rachel do any real policing or detective work. They talk to a bunch of Khattak's friends - who are bizarrely entangled in this mystery too (for no good reason) - and that's it. The only real thing they did was collect evidence. Khan tries her best to tell us that Rachel is empathetic and kind-hearted, but I see none of it in her interactions with suspects. She treats Melanie Blessant like she is the scum of the earth and she harasses a mentally disabled man until she upsets him, leaving the brother (who never consented to her interrogation) to calm him down. Khattak is no great detective either - he stands passively to the side, never divulges relevant information, lets Rachel clumsily ask question after question with each suspect, and immediately biases himself by falling in love with one of the main suspects (going as far as to deny her role in the victim’s death). CPS (as fake as it sounds) sounds super corrupt, considering both of them are willing to bad mouth a suspect to her face and are willing to even blackmail her into giving custody to her kids. Melanie is written to be a terrible character but honestly, after all the slut shaming/body shaming comments every character made about her, I felt no vindication or rejoice when Khattak calls her appalling. I just felt sick.

Every single woman in this story is 1 dimensional and shamed for being either beautiful or sexual. Rachel is "not like the other girls" because she's not a stone-cold fox and has an athletic stocky body. She's obsessed with her boss and seems to seek the approval and admiration of many of the men in this book. Rachel hates women and wants men to think she's capable. She's a boring character and a terrible misogynist. Khan writes like a male author, constantly reminding us how beautiful or buxom every woman is. I wanted to roll my eyes every single time Melanie Blessant’s large breasts were brought up in the scene. We get it lady, you hate women who get plastic surgery!! Enough of it already!!!

My final point will be on diversity. This book takes place primarily in Scarborough - a district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I know that area. I have family that lives in that area. Scarborough is basically my second home at this point. I have never ever seen as many white people in Scarborough as I did in this book. Scarborough is bursting at the seams with ethnic diversity and yet the sole person of colour is Khattak, who is sparsely written and honestly didn't need to be a MOC. He could've been Bosnian-Muslim and his ties to the mystery would've actually made sense, instead of the flimsy "he's upset because he's also Muslim" excuse Khan uses. Frankly, what a goddamn disappointment. A book written by a woman of colour about a man of colour in one of the most diverse cities in Ontario ends up being a story about a misogynistic white woman learning about war for the first time. How ridiculous it is, too, when Mink accuses Khattak of never being able to understand how hard it would be to be Muslim in a world that did not accept them. Mink is a white woman who can easily hide her religious affiliations. KHATTAK IS A BROWN SKINNED PAKISTANI MAN. What do you MEAN, he wouldn’t understand??? How can you understand Bosnian history so well but choose to neglect Pakistani history like that? Or Canadian history regarding minorities. Ridiculous, stupid, and such a dumb choice.

I feel, going through all of these reviews and knowing the accolades this book received, like I'm going crazy. Is the bar really that low for a mystery novel? Are we really that okay with the poorly fleshed out, stereotypically sexualized/villanized/shamed female characters, and flimsy plots? Is that all it takes to win awards? Shit, I should've sent my high school fiction to a publisher years ago - I could have 60 awards by now and I actually know how to write women in a positive light! I learned in high school that you should show the reader information, not tell them like a college lecture! I better go find those old stories and send them to a publisher – my accolades await me!


Don't waste your time on this book. Or do, and you can come complain with me about how awful this book is. I think I'll go read some Agatha Christie now, to wash my eyes/ears of this poor excuse of a mystery and read some actual quality again.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1991, Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from the crumbling state of Yugoslavia, federation of six republics formed after WWII. Any disquiet a unification of Serbs, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Albanians, and Slovenes engendered was suppressed by communist puppet Tito. After his death in 1980, religious and cultural conflicts resurfaced. By 1991, the conflicts had become civil war. When Bosnia, with its complex mix of Serbs, Muslims and Croats, pushed for independence, Bosnia's Serbs, led by Radovan Karadzic, threatened violence against the Republic's Muslims and Croats. The push for independence went forward anyway. And the result was genocide such as the world had not seen since the Holocaust and Stalin's purges. Genocide we were certain we'd never see again.

A new term entered our lexicon of war: ethnic cleansing. By the time the war was declared officially over in 1995, 100,000 had been slaughtered. Millions displaced. And perhaps the most horrific event of this terrible modern war occurred right at the end: the Srebrenica massacre, where more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were murdered in a 10-day period in the eastern Bosnian city of Srebrenica.

It is in the lingering nightmare of this devastating and gruesome recent history that author Ausma Zehanat Khan sets her debut police procedural, the first in what is now a five-book series featuring Canadian detectives Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty. Esa is a second-generation Canadian Muslim and the head of Toronto’s Community Policing Section, a new effort designed to foster better relations with Toronto's diverse ethnic communities. Rachel, his second in command, is milk-fed Canadian a blunt, awkward, broad-shouldered hockey player who still lives at home with her alcoholic and abusive ex-cop father and her mousy, defeated mother. Zach, Rachel 's younger brother, ran away from home years before at the age of 15, and Rachel has been looking for him ever since. It's the reason why she still endures the stifling life at home: if someday her brother should return, she wants to be there to greet him.

Esa is a far more elusive character. We learn that he is widowed, and that he and Rachel have been partners on some difficult cases in the past, perhaps involving Esa's lovers. He is quietly observant, his Muslim faith acknowledged but carried out in private. Devastatingly handsome, he fends off the advances and attention from women with grace and practice, but isn't afraid to bat his eyelashes when it will get him in with a potential witness or suspect.

Khan is a lawyer who specializes in human rights. She puts her formidable academic and professional background, as well as her tremendous passion and compassion to astonishing effect in The Unquiet Dead. The extensive research she cites in the Author's Note, end notes and Acknowledgements elevate this book from series crime fiction into deeply resonant literary fiction. Much of this is devastating reading: she goes deep into the heinous war crimes exacted against Bosnian Muslim and shines a light, through a fascinating mystery, on the relevance this 25-year-old war has today.

Christopher Drayton, a wealthy newcomer to one of Toronto's exclusive neighborhoods, is found dead, after falling from the Bluffs overlooking Lake Ontario. This wouldn't be a case for Esa Khattak's Community Policing division, but a call from the Canadian Justice Department indicates that Drayton wasn't who he claimed to be, and his death may not have been an accident.

Although Khan's mastery of her human right's subject matter is awesome, the crime and procedural aspect of The Unquiet Dead is far more wobbly. Femme fatales Melanie and Laine are so immediately off-putting and hateful that they become caricatures, disrupting the believability of the plot. Esa's immediate fixation on Mink feels like authorial intrusion by the end- manipulative and predictable. And there are just so many characters whose walk-on roles feel superfluous- Khan's attempts to introduce us to characters and plotlines we are obviously meant to meet again or follow in subsequent books feels forced. I nearly abandoned the book in its opening chapter because of the heavy exposition. But I kept on, pulled in by Rachel's voice and Khan's exquisite writing.

Ultimately, the book's themes and its central characters resonated deeply. I look forward to continuing with the next in this series. This is smart, provocative, elegant literature.