Murder in the Name of Honour

Starred review from June 1, 2009
This nonfiction account should join Afghan writer Khaled Hosseinis fictive A Thousand Splendid Suns as an unforgettable example of shining the light on how contemporary atrocities committed against women have been shielded by law, or hidden by war and tumult. Husseini is a Jordanian investigative reporter whose examination of the ritual killing of women to protect mens honor began in 1994 when, as a new crime reporter for the Jordan Times, she noticed a rash of four-line articles that chronicled the murders of women by male relatives, presentedlike so many soccer scores. Her examination of honor killings, in which women can be killed for chewing gum, wearing makeup, having premarital sex, committing adultery, even for being raped by a family member, has expanded outward from Jordan and the Middle East into investigations of the phenomenon across Europe, in the United Kingdom, and in the U.S.; according to Husseini, whose work has been highlighted in CNN and BBC documentaries, at least 5,000 women are murdered for honor every year. The value of this book lies not only in the fact that Husseini brings to light an unspeakable and rampant atrocity but alsoin the way she tells her own story and how she shows the reader the step-by-step processof her investigations. A powerful and important book.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)