Among the Ruins

November 28, 2016
Khan’s provocative third mystery featuring Esa Khattak (after 2015’s The Language of Secrets) takes Khattak, who’s on leave from Toronto’s Community Policing Section, to Iran. In a small town outside Esfahan, Esa meets an agent for the Canadian government, who asks him to look into the death of Zahra Sobhani, a renowned Iranian-born filmmaker who settled in Toronto. Sobhani created a media storm to secure her return to Iran, where she made a documentary, A Requiem of Hope, detailing the irregularities of the country’s 2009 election and the protests that followed. She also evaded her handlers to take photos at the notorious Evin prison. Sobhani was later arrested, tortured, and killed. Members of a ragtag protest group help Esa delve into the maelstrom of Iranian politics. Back in Canada, Esa’s police partner, Sgt. Rachel Getty, investigates Sobhani’s life in Toronto. Esa and Rachel risk their lives in an effort to discover who killed Sobhani and why. Khan intertwines a tale of love and fear with the rich history of a troubled land. Agent: Danielle Burby, Hannigan Salky Getzler.

December 15, 2016
A Muslim Canadian detective's instinct for trouble follows him to Iran. Esa Khattak's roots are in Pakistan, but he's always been fascinated by Iran, which he's visiting while on leave from the Community Policing department after killing someone during his last case (Language of Secrets, 2016). While he's in the imperial capital of Esfahan, he starts receiving cryptic messages and has a feeling he's being watched. Though he speaks fluent Farsi and has used his Pakistani passport to apply for a visa, someone evidently knows he's a Canadian policeman. Soon enough he's approached by both a Canadian agent and a group of young dissidents to look into the government-sponsored death of Canadian-Iranian filmmaker Zahra Sobhani, whose son Max, a famous musician, is desperate to get her body returned to Canada. Questions have been raised about the reason for Zahra's trip to Iran, where she knew she wouldn't be welcome once she made a film critical of the tyrannical regime's human rights record and sought to get her activist stepdaughter released from prison. Back in Canada, Esa's partner, Rachel Getty, and his dearest friend, author Nathan Clare, follow up leads he sends from Iran. Despite his reluctance to give up his peaceful immersion in the beauties of the country and the fascination of its ancient culture, Esa becomes more and more involved in the dissidents' cause. At length he discovers that there may have been more than one reason that Zahra returned and was murdered. Now he must take on the persona of a spy to prove his theory and get out of Iran alive. A lyrically written look into a country many think of as war-torn and bleak reveals many sides to the place and its people.

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Starred review from February 1, 2017

In her provocative third mystery featuring Canadian policeman Esa Khattak (after The Language of Secrets), Khan sends her hero to Iran to investigate the murder of a female filmmaker. Esa, on leave from Toronto's Community Policing Section after a fatal force incident, is in the Iranian city of Esfahan, first as a tourist and then as an official investigator, after he's contacted by a group of dissidents who are upset over the death of Canadian Iranian documentary filmmaker Zahra Sobhani. Her film about the country's 2009 election and its aftermath caused a media firestorm in Iran and led to Sobhani's arrest, after which she was tortured and killed. As he becomes more immersed in investigating Sobhani's murder, Esa's partner in Toronto, Sgt. Rachel Getty, does her part to poke into the victim's life in Canada. Esa, who originally traveled to Iran to soak up the ancient culture (he's conveniently fluent in Farsi), is torn between stepping into the obvious hotbed of Iranian politics and enjoying the nation's storied history. VERDICT Deeply political without becoming pedantic, Khan's crime novel offers a fictionalized yet very real look at a region that is steeped in both beauty and misery. [See Prepub Alert, 8/15/16.]

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2017
On administrative leave after killing a man, Inspector Esa Khattak, head of Canada's Community Policing Section, is visiting Iran as a tourist when business intrudes. Internationally famous documentary filmmaker Zahra Sobhani, who holds dual Canadian-Iranian citizenship, has been raped, tortured, and killed at Iran's Evin prison, where she hoped to free her beloved stepdaughter. Khattak is asked to identify the person responsible. Meanwhile, the inspector is getting mysterious letters, presumably from an imprisoned political prisoner. Khattak's identity is clearly known to various political factions, and he must step carefully in getting involved with the dissident Green movement as he investigates Sobhani's murder. Interspersed with the activity of Khattak, who calls for help from his partner, Sergeant Rachel Getty, are wrenching accounts of torture from a political prisoner at Kahrizak, an even worse prison than Evin. As in The Unquiet Dead (2015), Khan uses an involving mystery in a vividly portrayed setting to illustrate unspeakable violations undertaken by governments in religious and political chaos. In Khan's hands, mysteries carry powerful messages.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)