{"id":6386,"date":"2025-04-29T07:09:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T14:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=6386"},"modified":"2025-04-29T07:09:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T14:09:18","slug":"uzma-jalaluddin-detective-aunty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/uzma-jalaluddin-detective-aunty\/","title":{"rendered":"Uzma Jalaluddin: Detective Aunty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kausar Khan #1<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This is the first mystery for writer Uzma Jalaluddin, though she\u2019s already had a successful writing career creating women\u2019s fiction.\u00a0 Her detective, a recent widow named Kausar Khan, lives in North Bay, Canada.\u00a0 One morning she gets a call from her daughter Sana, back in Toronto, telling her there\u2019s been a murder and she\u2019s the prime suspect.\u00a0 Then she hangs up.\u00a0 Kausar, who hasn\u2019t been back to Toronto since the death of her son many years ago, nevertheless hurriedly packs a bag and jumps on a plane.<\/p>\n

She arrives at Sana\u2019s to find Sana uncommunicative. She\u2019s delighted to see her granddaughters who are 10 and 15, but her son in law is missing.\u00a0 When he does return, it\u2019s obvious something is wrong.\u00a0 Sana isn\u2019t sharing too many details with her mother but it does emerge that the murdered man was her landlord at the plaza where she had recently opened a clothing store. It doesn\u2019t take much time for Kausar to discover that the man was soundly detested by all his tenants, but beyond that, Sana asks her just to be her mom, to be there to take care of the kids and do the cooking.<\/p>\n

Kausar was a traditional Pakistani wife.\u00a0 She had an arranged marriage with a very traditional man \u2013 a man who she loved \u2013 but who expected the same of her: cooking, taking care of the house, child minding.\u00a0 Kausar, however, is something of a natural detective and simply cooking and babysitting are not going to cut it, especially when her daughter\u2019s life is on the line.\u00a0 Of course she begins to ask questions, despite Sana\u2019s pleas that she keep her nose out of it. So far, so cozy.<\/p>\n

The strength of this book are the characters, especially Kausar, who is finally coming to terms with the hit and run death of her son at age 15.\u00a0 Being back in Toronto in her old neighborhood she begins to run into old friends and to feel out the community where she had lived for so many years.\u00a0 This has a strong Vera Wong<\/em> vibe \u2013 older detective who sticks her nose in where it doesn\u2019t belong, bolstered by great cooking and in Kausar\u2019s case, kindness.\u00a0 As with Vera Wong, <\/em>the author is new to mysteries, and that part shows a little bit in the slightly meandering middle.<\/p>\n

What kept my attention was Kausar and her unexpected, blossoming relationship with her sometimes sullen teenage granddaughter, Maleeha.\u00a0 Maleeha, however, has the same goal as Kausar: clearing her mother\u2019s name.\u00a0 The two of them make an excellent duo as Maleeha knows things about Sana and life in Toronto that Kausar simply does not.\u00a0 It\u2019s the relationships in the novel that maintain interest for the reader and make the story a more compelling one.\u00a0 Each connection to Kausar\u2019s past is not only another way she begins to feel more at home, but it\u2019s a connection to be explored in the hopes of clearing Sana\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

The author paints an in-depth picture of the depression that followed the death of Kausar\u2019s son \u2013 depression that took her and her husband to remote North Bay, depression that cut her off from her other children and from life and friends back in Toronto.\u00a0 As the depression lifts, Kausar begins to feel more sure of herself, that she is a woman who can solve problems and right wrongs.<\/p>\n

The little community at the shopping plaza where Sana has her store is also deftly portrayed \u2013 the plaza is aging and not doing too well.\u00a0 After the owner\u2019s death it looks like it will be sold and converted to something else.\u00a0 Jalaluddin proves to be expert at drawing the threads of the story together into a solution, and the book is structured in an extremely traditional manner, with Kausar concluding the novel by bringing all the suspects together as she explains what actually happened.\u00a0 As a reader I never thought Sana was guilty, but things do look dire for her. However, I had faith that the capable Kausar would discover the truth.<\/p>\n

This is a charming mystery stuffed with memorable and interesting characters.\u00a0 If you lose a little heart about half way through stick with it \u2013 have faith in Detective Aunty.\u00a0 She\u2019s going to discover the truth. —\u00a0Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Kausar Khan #1 This is the first mystery for writer Uzma Jalaluddin, though she\u2019s already had a successful writing career creating women\u2019s fiction.\u00a0 Her detective, a recent widow named Kausar Khan, lives in North Bay, Canada.\u00a0 One morning she gets a call from her daughter Sana, back in Toronto, telling her there\u2019s been a murder … 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":[1057,2084,2083,998,2087,2085,2086,1276,83,1436,2082,2050],"class_list":["post-6386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-amateur-sleuth","tag-desi-culture","tag-detective-aunty","tag-first-in-series","tag-harper-perennial","tag-kausar-khan","tag-older-detective","tag-robin-agnew","tag-toronto","tag-traditional-detection","tag-uzma-jalaluddin","tag-vera-wong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6386","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=6386"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6392,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6386\/revisions\/6392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}