{"id":4627,"date":"2022-10-24T07:31:51","date_gmt":"2022-10-24T14:31:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=4627"},"modified":"2022-10-24T07:31:51","modified_gmt":"2022-10-24T14:31:51","slug":"ausma-zehanat-khan-blackwater-falls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/ausma-zehanat-khan-blackwater-falls\/","title":{"rendered":"Ausma Zehanat Khan: Blackwater Falls"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This book opens with a bang and doesn\u2019t let up.\u00a0 A young woman is found crucified on the door of the local Evangelical Church in Blackwater Falls, Colorado.\u00a0 The dead woman, Razan, is a Muslim, which brings in Denver\u2019s Community Response Unit, or CRU, who are called in on cases of racial sensitivity.\u00a0 The squad is headed by Lt. Seif, but the book centers on one of his officers, Detective Inaya Rahman. The local sheriff is annoyed that his case is being preempted by the CRU and does his best to be unhelpful.<\/p>\n

Despite the beauty and apparent idyllic nature of Blackwater Falls, there are tensions, changes and shifts under the surface.\u00a0 The community is home to many Muslim refugees and they aren\u2019t welcome, appreciated, or understood everywhere.\u00a0 Detective Rahman is a Pakistani who has left her previous job because things went south after a traumatic incident, and she and her family have all made the move.\u00a0 Her father is extremely supportive; her traditional mother is looking for a groom.<\/p>\n

Khan tackles a lot in this book which for all intents and purposes is simply a police procedural.\u00a0 Because of recent issues with police, the turn in perspective that Khan brings to the story makes it both a more profound reading experience as well as a more complicated one.\u00a0 Much of it centers on the culture of immigrant families who are afraid to speak up \u2013 the father of the dead girl has been injured in the meat packing plant where he works, but he doesn\u2019t want to make a fuss.<\/p>\n

It appears there are also two missing Somali girls.\u00a0 The families had gone to the police but the police insist the two girls are runaways, and their parents do not want to make a fuss either.\u00a0 However, local activist and attorney Areesha Adams is sure they are not simply runaways, and insists the CRU follow up.\u00a0 Inaya\u2019s partner is Catalina Hernandez, another immigrant.\u00a0 While the two women have had different experiences, they also understand both each other and the communities they are trying to assist.<\/p>\n

There are layers and layers to this beautifully rendered story.\u00a0 There\u2019s an Evangelical biker gang; there\u2019s the pastor and huge congregation of the local Evangelical church, the pastor\u2019s sermons inciting members of his congregation to unfortunate action; and there\u2019s the sheriff, who seems to have his hand in every pie.\u00a0 Inaya\u2019s past is illuminated, as is the painful incident that caused her to leave her previous job in Chicago.\u00a0 This incident was so painful to read about \u2013 and the way Khan insists the reader experience it with her \u2013 that I actually had to set the book aside for a bit.\u00a0 Inaya\u2019s trauma is similar to one experienced by Razan.<\/p>\n

The sensitive and illuminating way that Khan writes about and illustrates the Muslim culture and the way \u201cordinary\u201d Americans react to this culture in a time that is fraught with division as well as racial hatred and suspicion makes this book not just a good read, it\u2019s a must read.\u00a0 The characters, the story, even the beautiful setting, pierced by violence and hatred, form a tapestry that\u2019s impossible to look away from. The hatred and violence are balanced by the sense of community felt from Inaya\u2019s culture to her faith to the ties of the families who have lost family members.\u00a0 This is definitely one of the reads of the year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This book opens with a bang and doesn\u2019t let up.\u00a0 A young woman is found crucified on the door of the local Evangelical Church in Blackwater Falls, Colorado.\u00a0 The dead woman, Razan, is a Muslim, which brings in Denver\u2019s Community Response Unit, or CRU, who are called in on cases of racial sensitivity.\u00a0 The squad … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[957,958,960,100,959,8],"class_list":["post-4627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-ausma-zehanat-khan","tag-blackwater-falls","tag-inaya-rahman","tag-minotaur-books","tag-muslim-culture","tag-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4628,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4627\/revisions\/4628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}