Books & Reviews
KINGDOM OF STRANGERSJune 2012
When a secret grave is unearthed in the Saudi desert containing the bodies of nineteen women, all with their hands cut off at the wrist, a shocking truth is revealed: a serial killer has been operating in Jeddah for more than a decade.
Even as he lands the biggest case of his career, lead inspector Ibrahim Zahrani is distracted by a mystery closer to home. His mistress, Sabria, has suddenly disappeared, yet as a respected law officer, husband, and father of five, he cannot report her missing without fear of reprisals. In Saudi Arabia, adultery is punishable by death...
CITY OF VEILSAugust 2010
When the body of a brutally murdered and severely disfigured woman is found on the beach in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Detective Osama Ibrahim dreads investigating another unsolvable housemaid murder—unpleasantly common in a city where the veils of conservative Islam keep women as anonymous in life as the victim is in death. Digging deeper, however, an ambitious lab-tech named Katya discovers that the body is not that of a disobedient servant, but Leila Nawar, a rebellious young filmmaker who has made more than a few enemies with her probing documentaries on religious hypocrisy and sexuality.
FINDING NOUFMay 2008
When sixteen-year-old Nouf goes missing, her prominent family calls on Nayir Sharqi, a pious desert guide, to lead the search party. Ten days later, just as Nayir is about to give up in frustration, her body is discovered by anonymous desert travelers. When the coroner's office determines that Nouf died not of dehydration but from drowning, and her family seems suspiciously uninterested in getting at the truth, Nayir takes it upon himself to find out what really happened.