An unique mystery

3.5 stars. This book fell just a little flat for me but I think that had more to do with my expectations than the actual book itself. It’s nice to finally pick up a genre book that isn’t all white people. This series centers on detectives Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty who work on culturally sensitive crimes up in Canada. When they’re called in to investigate the death of a wealthy businessman, Rachel can’t figure out what this has to do with their department and Khattak is playing his cards close to his chest, much to her annoyance.

Eventually, some information comes to light that they may be investigating a war criminal with ties to the Srebrenica massacre of 1995. If Canadian muslims and Bosnian refugees find out Canada may have been housing a war criminal, the fallout could be terrible. Their job is to investigate the hell out of the case before it becomes public so they can present all the facts.

Khan intersperses narrative from refugees in the 1990s throughout the book and the effect is powerful. I was just a kid when the war was taking place so I don’t remember all the details. It was good to learn more about the war through fiction.

I wish there had been more character development for Esa, but Rachel was a fascinating character that I’d definitely like to see more of. I assume that the second book in the series continues to develop the characters so we get to see more depth.