Showing results by author "Ausma Khan" in All Categories

Scarborough Bluffs, Toronto: the body of Christopher Drayton is found at the foot of the cliffs. Muslim Detective Esa Khattak, head of the Community Policing Unit, and his partner, Rachel Getty, are called in to investigate. As the secrets of Drayton's role in the 1995 Srebrenica genocide of Bosnian Muslims surface, the harrowing significance of his death makes it difficult to remain objective. In a community haunted by the atrocities of war, anyone could be a suspect.

In the aftermath of a mass shooting at a mosque in Quebec, the local police apprehend Amadou Duchon - a young Muslim man at the scene helping the wounded - but release Etienne Roy, the local priest who was found with a weapon in his hands. The shooting looks like a hate crime, but Detectives Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty sense there is more to the story. Sent to liaise with a community in the grip of fear, they find themselves in fraught new territory, fuelled by the panic and suspicion exploited by a right-wing radio host.

Detective Esa Khattak heads up Canada's Community Policing Section, which handles minority-sensitive cases across all levels of law enforcement. Khattak is still under scrutiny for his last case, so he's surprised when INSET, Canada's national security team, calls him in on another politically sensitive issue.

On leave from Canada's Community Policing department, Esa Khattak is traveling in Iran, reconnecting with his cultural heritage and seeking peace in the country's beautiful mosques and gardens. But Khattak's supposed break from work is cut short when he's approached by a Canadian government agent in Iran, asking him to look into the death of renowned Canadian Iranian filmmaker Zahra Sobhani. Zahra was murdered at Iran's notorious Evin prison, where she'd been seeking the release of a well-known political prisoner.

For Inspector Esa Khattak and Sergeant Rachel Getty, the Syrian refugee crisis is about to become personal. Esa's childhood friend, Nathan Clare, calls him in distress: his sister, Audrey, has vanished from a Greek island where the siblings run an NGO. Audrey had been working to fast-track refugees to Canada, but now she is implicated in the double murder of a French Interpol agent and a young man who had fled the devastation in Syria.

A dark power known as the Talisman has risen in the land. Born of ignorance and persecution, it is led by a man known only as the One-Eyed Preacher. A superstitious patriarchy, cruel and terrifying, the Talisman suppresses knowledge and subjugates women. And it is growing. But there are those who seek to stop the oppressive spread of the Talisman.

The fourth and final instalment in Ausma Zehanat Khan's powerful epic fantasy quartet: a series that lies somewhere between N. K. Jemisin and George R. R. Martin, in which a powerful band of women must use all the powers at their disposal to defeat a dark and oppressive patriarchal regime. Armed with the powerful sorcery of the Bloodprint and supported by the Talisman, the oppressive, patriarchal One-Eyed Preacher is on the verge of conquering all Ashfall. Women will not be free under his rule. Yet not all is lost for Sinnia, Arian and the Citadel of Companions.

The Companions of Hira have used their cunning and their magic in the battle against the patriarchal Talisman, an organisation whose virulently conservative agenda restricts free thought. One of the most accomplished Companions, Arian, continues to lead a disparate group in pursuit of the one artifact that could end the Talismans' authoritarian rule: The Bloodprint.

To battle the cruel and controlling patriarchal force named the Talisman, members of a resistance group, the Companions of Hira, risked their lives to procure the Bloodprint....