3.5 stars. Among the Ruins combines two of the ingredients I love in fiction – it’s both set in a very familiar setting and took me to a different part of the world. This is the third in Khan’s Rachel Getty and Esa Khattak series. Esa has traveled to Iran while on leave from his work with the Toronto police. While in Iran, Esa quickly becomes embroiled in trying to figure out why a Canadian film maker recently died in Iran. Back in Toronto, Rachel helps Esa with his investigation. This set up al...

I absolutely love this series. The third in the series, this novel once again features Toronto Police Investigator Asa Khattak. He is in Iran, as a tourist, when he receives a request from a Candian government agent in Iran to investigate the death in prison of a prominent Canadian-Iranian film maker. As he gets deeper and deeper into the investigation, he calls upon his sidekick from Canada, Rachel Getty to help him from Canada and eventually in Iran. Rachel and Esa uncover a huge conspiracy wi...

My ongoing exploration of the Canadian police procedural series by Ausma Zehanat Khan took an interesting turn with this novel. Building off some of the series momentum and likely some ideas Khan wanted to put into action, the story shifts away from Canada and into a more complex world where democracy is anything but presumed. After being cleared of any wrongdoing during a recent inquiry, Esa Khattak is taking leave from the Community Policing Unit, if only to reset himself. His choice is to ven...

Yes, there is another great detective story writer in Canada. Not just Louise Penny. Ausma Zehanat Khan is a superb writer, and her Pakistani-Canadian Detective Esa Khattak is just as sensitive, gentlemanly, and thoughtful as Penny's Inspector Gamache. Moreover, Khan's books are important because they tell what it is like being a Muslim in today's world.In this book, Khattak, shaken by the dark encounters in the last book, has gone to Iran to visit beautiful places important in Islamic history.

I actually finished this several weeks ago but I wanted to read it a second time before writing a review. I find that Khan’s works are worth a second read and this was very true in the case of this book as I understand little of the politics in that part of the world. The current hostilities between Iran and the US make it very topical. The book was published in 2017 and the timeline in the front ends with an optimistic note about a nuclear agreement being reached in 2015....which agreement is n...

The latest in the Rachel Getty and Esa Khattack series. This one had a bit of slow start, but I kept at it and was rewarded with a wonderful cloak and dagger type mystery. This time Esa and Rachel are separated. Esa being away on a vacation of sorts in Iran when the Canadian government asks him to look into the death of Iranian film maker, Zahra Sobhani, who is a Canadian citizen. He must be careful in his investigation or risk expulsion or worse. Rachel is doing the research and interviewing on...

3.5 Esa Khattek, a police officer in Canada, on leave due to a death in his last case, travels to Iran to reconnect with his Muslim roots. While there he will become embroiled in the tortuous death at the notorious Evin prison of a Canadian/Iranian filmmaker. I find this series fascinating, learning about a culture I know little about and a country I will never visit. The many different sides to Iran, from the beautiful mosques, ancient artifacts and beautiful setting, against the corrupt and de...

For me the true test of any book is if you cannot stop thinking about it and its characters once you have finished reading it and did the book affect you profoundly in some manner. Among the Ruins is a resounding yes to both!On leave from his normal duties with Canadian Community Policing, Esa Khattuck travels to Iran for peace and quiet and to learn more about his heritage. While there he is approached by a Canadian agent and is enlisted to help solve an international "problem." Through this, w...

This is the third book in the series featuring a Muslim Canadian police officer, Esa Khattak, and his partner, Rachel Getty.Esa is vacationing in Iran when he is approached by a Canadian agent and a group of dissidents who ask him to look into the government-sanctioned torture and killing of an Iranian-Canadian filmmaker, Zahra Sobhani. Among the questions he must ask is why she would have risked returning to Iran after making a film critical of Iran’s human rights record. Esa quietly investigat...

All the feels."A few miles from where he took tea in a courtyard, screams sounded against the walls of a prison, darkening the skies. A graveyard scarred the hills, witness to the truth. Khattak knew of no way to measure these realities, or to grapple with their contrasts. He felt an unbearable pity for (spoiler), even as he felt the weight of judgment." This is what Ausma Zehanat Khan does so beautifully. She provides a detailed juxtaposition of unspeakable evil and cruelty against a backdrop o...

Ausma Zehanat Khan writes the smartest mysteries ever. If you want to travel the world while investigating murder, her books should be on your list. Canadian cops Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty are an unstoppable team--so unstoppable they can collaborate on a murder case when they’re halfway across the world from each other. Esa is on leave in Iran when a Canadian filmmaker is arrested and killed while in custody, and even though getting involved is highly risky to him personally, with Rachel’s he...

The third addition to Khan's Rachel Getty & Esa Khattak series picks up shortly after the events of book two. After the tragic end of book two, Esa is on leave and is recouping by traveling to Iran, a place that has held long fascination with him. While abroad, Esa finds himself embroiled in a dangerous mystery when a Canadian agent requests that Esa look into a death of a well known filmmaker at the notorious Evin prison. Esa is reluctant to involve himself in this. Not only is he still reeling...

Esa Khattak, on leave from Toronto's Community Policing Department, travels to Iran and becomes embroiled in a political situation that quickly becomes a murder mystery.As in the first two installments of Getty & Khattak, author Ausma Zehanat Khan calls on current politics to craft an atmospheric, intelligent police procedural. In this case, an Iranian filmmaker known for her provocative commentary on Iran's human rights abuses is arrested and jailed in Teheran's notorious Evin prison. Even thou...

3-1/2 stars. This third volume in the Rachel Getty & Esa Khattak series would probably have been better to read in print rather than in audio format, as it was challenging to distinguish and keep track of the many unfamiliar names of characters, especially those in Iran. While on vacation in Iran, Esa is contacted by a woman who seeks his help with an investigation; when her plea for assistance fails to persuade him, she turns to threats to make Esa's status with the police and the public in Can...

Esa Khattak is in Iran, on a personal trip, a vacation of sorts, visiting historical and religious sites important to him and his Muslim heritage. He entered the country not as the Canadian policeman he is but as a more acceptable, to the Iranian government, Pakistani, the country of his parents. Now he is in the midst of unanticipated problems, dealing with a repressive state, the apparent murder of a Canadian woman from Iran, and mysteries dating back to the last Shah. This is a fascinating se...

I really need a knockout read for 2019! Everything I've been reading has only ever been just okay. I read two and listened to two. They haven't been all that exciting. Among the Ruins was okay, but I felt detached from it often because of the clinical sounding insertions of political facts. I appreciated them, I really did, but they felt like it does when watching Law & Order episodes (SVU episodes) when the break in the dialogue is so obvious to add in the statistical facts about crime, rape, e...

i think this is the first time with any series (save for perhaps...Elena Ferrante), where i have given 4-stars for the first 3 books. (ferrante and khan are very different writers, doing very different things so that's not a comparison of them... just for how strong khan's series is. does that make sense?)book #3 takes us away from toronto, to iran. the change of location didn't actually diminish the khattak-getty partnership at all and, in fact, allowed them each to develop a bit more, as well

I love this series for its combination of political intelligence, anger, compassion, and attention to history. Iran emerges here as the surprising main character: lush spiritual and physical beauty hedged by corrupt political regimes built on repression, torture and extreme human rights abuses. Khan documents the latter while paying homage to a culture and a people who maintain their humanity in the face of unimaginable fear and suffering.For all the good stuff, though, I didn't find this book a...

I really wanted to love this mystery, but the author mostly confused me and/or bored me with details of Iranian history, culture, and minutiae. I kept thinking: Just tell the story!

Two reasons for my harsh rating:1. This story assumes the reader has read the previous two in the series - characters and references from the first books are not explained and make for confusion2. I think you need to be serious scholar of Iran's tumultuous history to understand it. If you've been to Iran, I'm sure the author's descriptions of heritage places are interesting, but even though I persevered, I couldn't relate to the mystery or feel connected to the outcome.