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    The Language of Secrets
    The Language of Secrets
    The Language of Secrets
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Language of Secrets

    Written by Ausma Zehanat Khan

    Narrated by Peter Ganim

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The second book in the spellbinding mystery series featuring Detective Esa Khattak and his partner, Detective Rachel Getty. Follow up to THE UNQUIET DEAD.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateFeb 2, 2016
    ISBN9781622317424
    The Language of Secrets
    Author

    Ausma Zehanat Khan

    Ausma Zehanat Khan holds a Ph.D. in international human rights law with a specialization in military intervention and war crimes in the Balkans. She is a former adjunct law professor and Editor-in-Chief of Muslim Girl magazine, the first magazine targeted to young Muslim women in North America. She is also the award-winning author of The Unquiet Dead and The Bloodprint, the first book in The Khorasan Archives. A British-born Canadian, Khan now lives in Colorado with her husband. 

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    Reviews for The Language of Secrets

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      This stunningly complex police procedural set in Canada is told with grace and poignancy grabbing the reader’s attention from first page to the last word. The storyline is loosely based on a terrorist attempt in Canada in 2006 and feels very current based on recent headlines. But the strength of this novel is the characters and the author’s skillful development of the multi-dimensional characters and emotionally perceptive skill of the motives, reasoning, and the group and individual objectives of the situations. For me mystery series are also about the lead investigators of the crime/puzzle/mystery to be solved and building what we know about them from book to book. This is the second book in the series and I so enjoyed what was revealed to us about Esa and Rachel. This case becomes very personal to Esa on both a professional and personal level as he is often pawn between two opposing groups and needs to figure out how best justice, fairness, and doing the right thing is best served.The language is poetic and lyrical yet reveals the tension and suspense as the dialogue is often jabbing at the characters to provoke them into action.Overall I found this book to be immensely satisfying and a splendid addition to the series. This book will appeal to mystery readers looking for a compelling diverse read. I am so looking forward to the next book in the series. While it is not necessary to read the first book in the series, The Unquiet Dead, it is highly recommended that readers to savor the full experience of the atmosphere and characters.
    • 5/5
      A special thank you to St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Talented author, Ausma Zehanat Khan returns following her debut, The Unquiet Dead, (an emotional, and haunting mystery of horrific crimes committed against Muslims in Bosnia, based on Srebrenica massacre of 1995.). She heats up the intensity with a new murder-mystery thriller, featuring Canadian dynamic duo (Rachel Getty & Esa Khattak #2) caught up into a complex world, where loyalties are tested. THE LANGUAGE OF SECRETS —another enthralling well researched political mystery thriller--of controversy, terrorism, religion, social issues, violence, culture, suspicion, and humanity; infused with history, poetry, and the classics. (Inspired by true, Canadian Toronto 18). Toronto-based Muslim detective,Esa Khattak heads up Canada's Community Policing Section, which handles minority-sensitive cases across all levels of law enforcement. Khattak is tested, torn divided by his devotion to his Muslim faith and community and his role as a police detective. He is constantly being scrutinized, suspected of being a traitor by both his Muslim community and by the police force.He was assigned to investigate the murder of Moshin, by INSET, Canada's federal intelligence agency. After investigating a local terrorist cell, planning an attack on New Year's Day, their informant, Moshin now has been murdered. They cannot risk exposing the operation; however, Khattak is divided, since this was his friend. His partner, hockey-loving Detective Rachel Getty, goes undercover in the mosque, claiming she is considering converting. An unfamiliar world of Islam--developing relationships and things get complicated—both professionally and personally. Well-researched (based on a real-life scheme by the so-called "Toronto 18," an extremist group that intended to attack Canadian Parliament in 2006)—and to behead parliamentarians as part of a plan to force the recall of Canadian troops from Afghanistan. In the summer of 2007 Canadian law enforcement carried out a major anti-terrorism operation that resulted in the arrest of eighteen suspects on terrorism charges. This group would later become known as the Toronto 18. Even though the participants in the plot were ill-equipped and poorly trained, they nevertheless attempted to make their plot a reality. As the author mentions in her notes: “As I researched the Toronto 18 case, I became aware of how closely the jihadist ideology of the Toronto 18 was tied to other issues: the conflation of Islam with violence, the perception that the actions of an extremist fringe inescapably taint and implicate an entire faith community, and the necessity of moving beyond reductive notions of (us and them) to achieve a deeper understanding of the present moment in history—one that might suggest a way forward.”Thought-provoking! Khan creates an eye-opening look into the world of Muslim faith, often misunderstood. An education for those ill-informed and uneducated into this world—the author’s passion is reflected throughout the pages with history, research, and her characters. A top notch, action-packed cop procedural, and a powerful insightful look into the Muslim community.Khan, equipped with a Ph.D. in international human-rights law, specializing in military intervention and war crimes in the Balkans, drew on her expertise and background for her debut novel, The Unquiet Dead a mystery-thriller connected to the 1995 Srebrenica genocide—highly recommend reading prior to THE LANGUAGE OF SECRETS. Beyond wanting to celebrate and share Eastern art, Khan had another personal reason for incorporating poetry into a whodunit murder. She says, “If you look at Arab or Persian traditions, you’ll see poetry is very much at their heart. I thought a very beautiful way to temper the ugliness of the jihadist ideology is also to express the beauty of those traditions.”
    • 4/5
      An excellent look at multi-cultural Toronto and a top-notch crime mystery.
    • 3/5
      Ausma Zehanet Khan’s novel The Language of Secrets is the second in her series of crime thrillers featuring Detective Esa Khattak and Detective Rachel Getty. Khattak heads up the RCMP’s Community Policing unit, which works on crime prevention programs with local communities and organizations, with a particular focus on unlawful activities that have a racial or religious connection. In this novel, Khattak is called in by the local Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) to help with a murder investigation linked to an extremist cell that is planning an attack somewhere in the Toronto area. An agent who infiltrated the cell has been murdered, and Khattak is instructed to investigate the murder as an isolated incident: that is, find the killer without tipping off members of the cell that the police are on to them. The assignment is complicated by several factors: the murdered man was a friend of Khattak’s, the INSET official leading the terrorist investigation, Ciprian Coale, holds a personal grudge against Khattak and refuses to give him access to the information that INSET has amassed on the terrorists, and the charismatic leader of the cell is engaged to Khattak’s sister. To help with his investigation, Khattak recruits his young partner, Rachel Getty, to infiltrate the mosque where members of the cell congregate. The tale that Khan weaves is complex, multi-layered and mostly gripping. Khan’s attractive protagonist, Esa Khattak, is a 2nd-generation practicing Muslim whose brand of Islam advocates peace and tolerance, and he deplores the violence perpetrated by those who have twisted the tenets of Islam to suit a radical agenda. The novel puts the author’s extensive knowledge of Islamic history and culture on full display. The narrative itself proceeds at a breathless pace and generates considerable suspense. Inevitably, Khattak decides that if he’s going to find the killer, he has no choice but to violate Coale’s information-flow restrictions, and both Khattak and Getty place themselves in harm’s way in order to get to the truth. Unfortunately a couple of story elements are not entirely convincing: Coale’s animosity toward Khattak is so all-consuming that he’s willing to compromise both investigations in order to make his adversary look bad, and Rachel’s high-risk infiltration of the mosque seems ill-advised since it comes in the days leading up to the planned attack, when we can assume those involved in the plot are going to be at their most vigilant and deeply suspicious of any new face that appears in their midst. Ultimately, the story the Khan has written takes place in a world of great moral uncertainty: a place where trust even among the police is a rare commodity. It also demonstrates that the disenfranchised are at great risk, and that the line separating the political from the personal is a very fine one indeed.
    • 4/5
      A solid police procedural with well developed characters - being American, not Canadian, I had no idea it was inspired by actual events - the Toronto 18. AZK does an excellent job of combining real historical elements with fiction in a way that inspires the reader to look beyond the page and beyond themselves, to question their beliefs and prejudices. I cannot wait to start her next book.
    • 4/5
      #2 in the series. Not as riveting as the first instalment
    • 4/5
      Thanks to the publisher and goodreads for a free copy of the Language of Secrets!

      So. Much as I would like to divorce books that I'm reading from current events, it's hard to. And in light of what happened in Quebec, it doesn't sit right with me to read a book about Muslim extremism -- not right now.

      This isn't a flaw of the book. These are my personal reservations.

      So, let me say this about the book. I think the mystery aspect is well-done. I enjoyed the characters. The writing itself is beautiful -- somehow bleak and elegant at once. I feel like issues of religion and extremism were handled with a great deal of sensitivity. (It's worth noting that the author is Muslim herself, which makes me feel a lot better about the content.)

      I think this will be a book series that I will come back to, one that I will recommend to others. I look forward to rereading this in the future.
    • 5/5
      Ausma Zehanat Khan's The Unquiet Dead was one of the best books I read in 2016, so I was looking forward to reading the next book in her Rachel Getty and Esa Khattak series. The Language of Secrets is another splendid entry in the series which had me leaving my comfort zone and entering the world of terrorist cells. It was clearer to me in reading this second book that Khattak has so many enemies within the police force that-- unless something happens soon-- it's going to be almost impossible for him to get anything done. The author also plays the differences between her two lead characters to perfection. Those who are familiar with the interpersonal relationships within Muslim families are going to understand Esa Khattak, while those who aren't are going to gravitate toward Rachel Getty. This is certainly true in my case because I find Khattak behaving as though he's the protector and savior of all those whom he cares for to get a little old. In real life, I might behave like his one rebellious sister who will purposely do the exact opposite of what he expects almost every single time. There is an excellent rapport between the two leads. They are rapidly learning each other's strengths and weaknesses as well as how each will react in any given circumstance. Khattak is an old pro while Getty needs a lot more experience-- some of which she certainly gets while going undercover.Although I had my suspicions about a certain character and thus wasn't completely surprised when all was revealed at the end, I did find parts of this absorbing book to be fascinating-- in particular, the ways terrorists try to avoid detection in their communications with each other. This problem of communication has meant that entirely new secret languages have been devised which can twist words of beauty into hatred and death.After this second page-turner, I'm looking forward to seeing where Getty and Khattak go in the next book in this series. Khattak may annoy me from time to time, but I do like his very different perspective on things.
    • 3/5
      A little over a year ago, I wrote probably one of my most glowing reviews ever for The Unquiet Dead, Ausma Zehanat Khan's spectacular launch of her Rachel Getty and Esa Khattak series. I concluded that review with an expectation that this would be "a terrific new mystery series." I am sorry to say that the second entry, The Language of Secrets, crushed my expectations.The Unquiet Dead centered around the Bosnian war, and Khan's expertise as a scholar of international human rights law, for whose dissertation the 1995 Srebrenica massacre served as a main focus, was evident in every scene. In contrast, The Language of Secrets revolves around a terrorist cell composed of your standard, run-of-the-mill, radical Muslim extremists. The plot is confusing, the characters wooden, and the tone that of a moderate Muslim stridently distancing himself from the barbaric acts of his co-religionists:"He knew what he was, what his community was. So different from what he saw on the news nightly—the lone wolves, the well-armed gunmen, the rabid mobs, the blistering flags, the overturned tanks, the rocket launchers, the blood-doomed faces, the cries in the street, the slogans of death chanted by those with nothing to lose."The titular "language of secrets" is that of poetry, but Khan's attempts to import poetry into her own writing are both clunky and trite:"This was the missing context for the spreading scourge of enmity and hate, the broken and sprawling politics of the Middle East.The generations mislaid by decades of war, by centuries of struggle.The splintered past, the crippled future, nothing to gain, less to give.A bruised carnation planted in a cup.A rose exchanged for a rifle.And the round of bread traded for both, in a fleeting moment of innocence."I am not inherently opposed to police detectives who wax philosophic or lyrical; Batya Gur's Israeli Chief Superintendent Michael Ohayon is a superb example of the breed. Unfortunately, Khattak's episodes of "deep thinking" feel inauthentic; Khan uses him to repeatedly expound upon her theme, explicitly set forth in her Author's Note, that "[t]here is no inherent connection between Islam and terrorism," to the detriment of both her character development and her story.Khan is hardly the first author to fall into this trap; I was constantly reminded of Josh Bazell and his Peter Brown series, in which the intriguing protagonist of Beat the Reaper abruptly became, in Wild Thing, a ventriloquist's dummy for his creator's diatribe on the environment. I had hoped for better from Khan.I received a free copy of The Language of Secrets through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
    • 4/5
      I know so little about the events in this book, so little about the Muslim religion as a whole. So this was a very eye opening book for me and one that is very different. A Muslim Detective in Toronto and his younger partner Rachel and an inside look at a radical cell that is based on an actual event called the Toronto 18, who intended to blow up Parliament in the summer of 2006. When Detective Khattack's friend is killed in Arlington Park after camping with a group from a mosque, Khattack is brought on to find the shooter. There are of course political agendas, family involvement and some young people in the mosque that may be innocent.The characters, all of them are very well fleshed out. The ending of this book has a very frantic and suspenseful pace. I learned a little and with the author's note learned a little more. But this book is very smartly written and though a few things left me a bit doubtful on the whole this was an excellent read. The second in the series, I now need to go back and read the first. This isma new series I will be following.ARC from Netgalley.