The Unquiet Dead--A Novel

Starred review from November 3, 2014
In Khan’s beautiful and powerful first novel, Esa Khattak, a second-generation Canadian Muslim and the head of Toronto’s Community Policing Section, and his sergeant, Rachel Getty, investigate the death of Christopher Drayton, who fell from a cliff overlooking Lake Ontario “with no evidence of outside interference.” When their inquiries reveal that Drayton was, in fact, the alias for a Serb who oversaw the slaughter of thousands of Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, Khattak and Getty have to wonder whether foul play was involved. Through her characters’ interactions and passages taken from testimony at war crimes trials, Khan reveals the depths of horror and venality that people are capable of while also portraying the healing of long-sundered relationships. Who killed Drayton remains a mystery until the final pages, but Khan’s story, as well as her author and source notes, leave no doubt of the monstrous crimes committed against Muslims in Bosnia while U.N. forces turned away. Agent: Danielle Burby, Hannigan Salky Getzler.

November 15, 2014
Two Toronto detectives are handed a politically sensitive case.Esa Khattak is a second-generation Canadian Muslim who heads the new Community Policing Section, created to deal with delicate cases involving minorities. A call from Tom Paley, chief historian at the Canadian Department of Justice, drops Esa and his partner, Rachel Getty, into the case of Christopher Drayton, who fell, jumped or was pushed off a cliff. They visit Drayton's famous neighbor, writer Nathan Clare, who is Esa's lifelong friend. Clare longs to renew a relationship that was destroyed by Esa's former partner, a siren who bewitched Clare into testifying against Esa in a complaint that almost ended his career. Rachel has secrets of her own. She still lives at home with her abusive ex-cop father and her meek mother in the hope that the beloved brother who left home at 15 will seek her out. The older daughter of Drayton's fiancee, mercenary Melanie Blessant, hated Drayton and hoped she and her sister could live with their father if her mother remarried. After dozens of letters with horrifying stories of rape and murder are found in Drayton's safe, Esa admits to Rachel that Drayton is probably Drazen Krstic, a former lieutenant colonel in the Bosnian Serb Army and the instigator of horrific war crimes. Paley wants the story kept quiet until they positively identify Krstic and learn the manner of his death. The scandal of U.N. forces standing by while thousands of Muslim men, women and children were slaughtered is intensified by the possibility that Krstic entered Canada with a fortune in blood money. Khan's stunning debut is a poignant, elegantly written mystery laced with complex characters who force readers to join them in dealing with ugly truths.

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Starred review from December 1, 2014

In Toronto, Det. Esa Khattak and Sgt. Rachel Getty work for the community policing section and are called in when there may be a sensitive aspect to a case. Investigating the supposedly accidental death of Christopher Drayton, the two officers soon uncover details that lead them to believe the man may have actually been a Bosnian war criminal involved with the Srebrenica massacre of 1995. With a large Bosnian refugee community in Toronto, the case is especially touchy. Mysteriously threatening letters that appeared on the victim's doorstep and the presence of a gold-digging fiancee add to the suspicion. As Khattak and Getty interview imams and neighbors and sort out what justice really means, they are forced to navigate the lingering effects of a horrible conflict and their own broken lives. VERDICT Flashbacks to the Bosnian War and glimpses into the personal tragedies of Khattak and Getty make this debut by a former law professor with a specialty in Balkan war crimes even more compelling and hauntingly powerful. Readers of international crime fiction will be most drawn to the story, but anyone looking for an intensely memorable mystery should put this book at the top of their list.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2014
Investigating a seemingly accidental death leads to horrific revelations in this debut novel grounded in fact. What's known is that wealthy businessman Christopher Drayton died in a fall from a bluff near his home. What is soon revealed is that Drayton was notorious war criminal Lieutenant Colonel Drazen Krstic, responsible for the deaths of thousands of Bosnian Muslims from 1992 to 1995. The job of confirming Drayton's identity and looking into his death falls to Esa Khattak, head of Canada's new Community Policing Section, and his partner, Sergeant Rachel Getty, both guarding secrets themselves. Khattak, a practicing Muslim, is estranged from his closest friend, Nathan Clare, a neighbor of Drayton's, to whom he goes for assistance on the case, while Rachel, daughter of a former police supervisor, still lives with her dysfunctional family while searching for her long-lost younger brother. Khan's earnest but sometimes mannered prose occasionally impedes the flow of her narrative; still, this novelwith interspersed chapters detailing accounts of survivors of the Bosnia massacrestells a story as heartbreaking as it is horrible and one that needs to be told.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)