When I first found the Seattle PBS-produced show about books and authors, Well Read, I caught an interview with Ian Rankin. Ian Rankin lives in Edinburgh and is the author of the Inspector Rebus novels, a best-selling mystery series. During the interview, Rankin said that the crime fiction he writes gives him an opportunity to talk about the social issues of the day. I think that's the kind of writing I find most interesting; writing that offers some social or personal commentary wrapped inside a mystery story.
I really enjoyed Ausma Zehanat Khan's debut mystery novel.
In the novel, Esa Khattak, a Canadian Muslim, is a special police detective assigned to investigate crimes that may be especially sensitive to the Muslim community. He has a partner, Rachel Getty.
Khattak is called upon to investigate an accident that took the life of a wealthy man. It isn't immediately clear why this accident is suspicious and merits investigation. Getty, Khattak's partner, is troubled by her feeling that she hasn't been told everything about the case. She soon learns that this is true: the dead man was living under an assumed identity and his hidden past may contain the motive for a murder.
There's a romance in this police procedural, as well as a very subtle sexual frisson between Khattak, a widower, and his single partner, Getty. There are several suspects, and the ending was a complete surprise to me.
I'm an armchair traveler, and reading books set in faraway places appeals strongly. This novel is set in Toronto, and some of the characters in the novel are Muslim refugees from the genocide of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the former Yugoslavia. Their memories of the genocide are part of the novel as well.
The role that the Bosnian genocide plays in the novel, especially the massacre of Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, both gives it gravity and probably disqualifies it as an entertainment for some readers.
My take is a little bit different. There are no murders in my real life, but there is irremediable loss, grief, and suffering. There is the mystery that we all carry around, the mystery of the losses and hurts that have shaped our character in a way that is not always obvious to ourselves, much less others. How loss shapes us, or misshapes us, was a theme in Tana French's Faithful Place, and one of the reasons I loved that novel. To me, the ongoing role that loss plays in our lives is the serious business of mystery.
I learned that the term "ethnic cleansing" was coined during the Balkan war of the early 90s to permit officials to avoid using the term "genocide." The two terms mean the exact same thing: the systematic imprisonment, or murder, of a certain ethnic group. Using the term "ethnic cleansing" instead of "genocide" seems very reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984, in which a variety of doublespeak, some quite imaginative, was used to deceive the public. Of course, this doesn't seem very fictional, because it isn't. Doublespeak, or the use of occasionally bizarre, occasionally transparent euphemisms to obscure the truth, is a fact of life today.
This use of fiction, as an educational tool rather than only entertainment, may be a little old-fashioned today. I think there was a time when more readers read fiction as an exercise in self-education. In 1967, Marshall McLuhan wrote: Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn’t know the first thing about either. Although I imagine McLuhan offered this aphorism to provoke thought, I find myself agreeing in the context of popular fiction, and am happiest encountering fiction with a clear message. This fiction is meant to entertain but also to educate, and I find that this kind of fiction is something I admire.
Other novels in this detective mystery series include: The Language of Secrets, Among the Ruins, and the just-released Dangerous Crossing.
I really enjoyed Ausma Zehanat Khan's debut mystery novel.
In the novel, Esa Khattak, a Canadian Muslim, is a special police detective assigned to investigate crimes that may be especially sensitive to the Muslim community. He has a partner, Rachel Getty.
Khattak is called upon to investigate an accident that took the life of a wealthy man. It isn't immediately clear why this accident is suspicious and merits investigation. Getty, Khattak's partner, is troubled by her feeling that she hasn't been told everything about the case. She soon learns that this is true: the dead man was living under an assumed identity and his hidden past may contain the motive for a murder.
There's a romance in this police procedural, as well as a very subtle sexual frisson between Khattak, a widower, and his single partner, Getty. There are several suspects, and the ending was a complete surprise to me.
I'm an armchair traveler, and reading books set in faraway places appeals strongly. This novel is set in Toronto, and some of the characters in the novel are Muslim refugees from the genocide of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the former Yugoslavia. Their memories of the genocide are part of the novel as well.
The role that the Bosnian genocide plays in the novel, especially the massacre of Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, both gives it gravity and probably disqualifies it as an entertainment for some readers.
My take is a little bit different. There are no murders in my real life, but there is irremediable loss, grief, and suffering. There is the mystery that we all carry around, the mystery of the losses and hurts that have shaped our character in a way that is not always obvious to ourselves, much less others. How loss shapes us, or misshapes us, was a theme in Tana French's Faithful Place, and one of the reasons I loved that novel. To me, the ongoing role that loss plays in our lives is the serious business of mystery.
I learned that the term "ethnic cleansing" was coined during the Balkan war of the early 90s to permit officials to avoid using the term "genocide." The two terms mean the exact same thing: the systematic imprisonment, or murder, of a certain ethnic group. Using the term "ethnic cleansing" instead of "genocide" seems very reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984, in which a variety of doublespeak, some quite imaginative, was used to deceive the public. Of course, this doesn't seem very fictional, because it isn't. Doublespeak, or the use of occasionally bizarre, occasionally transparent euphemisms to obscure the truth, is a fact of life today.
This use of fiction, as an educational tool rather than only entertainment, may be a little old-fashioned today. I think there was a time when more readers read fiction as an exercise in self-education. In 1967, Marshall McLuhan wrote: Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn’t know the first thing about either. Although I imagine McLuhan offered this aphorism to provoke thought, I find myself agreeing in the context of popular fiction, and am happiest encountering fiction with a clear message. This fiction is meant to entertain but also to educate, and I find that this kind of fiction is something I admire.
Other novels in this detective mystery series include: The Language of Secrets, Among the Ruins, and the just-released Dangerous Crossing.
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