The Unquiet Dead (Rachel Getty & Esa Khattak #1) in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Jun 17, 2015 Loretta rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-and-mystery, possible-inspiration

This is a somewhat mixed review. The description of the book intrigued me - I am on the look-out for Canadian crime/police stories featuring women protagonists, written by women, so that was one hook. The other was the subject matter - an investigation in Canada, but centering around a central figure in the Bosnian war. Very interesting, I thought.

There was some lovely lyrical writing, and the backdrop of the horrors of modern-day genocide did make a compelling read, especially in the final cha ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

May 02, 2022 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was ok

Shelves: mystery

I like mystery novels that are tight and focused on solving the mystery. This book felt very rambling, it was bloated with so much extra information that was not related to the central mystery. Rachel's abusive father, her fraught relationship with her parents (soooo fraught that she actually still lives with her parents), her missing brother, Esa's childhood friend, their falling out, Esa's former floozy partner, the history of Moorish Spain (I learned that Al-Andalus is the Moorish name for Sp I like mystery novels that are tight and focused on solving the mystery. This book felt very rambling, it was bloated with so much extra information that was not related to the central mystery. Rachel's abusive father, her fraught relationship with her parents (soooo fraught that she actually still lives with her parents), her missing brother, Esa's childhood friend, their falling out, Esa's former floozy partner, the history of Moorish Spain (I learned that Al-Andalus is the Moorish name for Spain ... hence, Andalusia), Muslim prayer practice, the entire situation in Bosnia (admittedly this last bit WAS relevant to the plot, but wow the info-dumping was intense) ... I listened to the audiobook, and I fell asleep during a massive info dump about Bosnia, and I woke up to another massive info-dump about a fight between Rachel and her brother. I was listening the whole time so I trust my subconscious caught the highlights. There was some business in the beginning of the book about how Rachel and Esa were both disgraced by something or other and they were both given this second chance - I didn't catch all of that, and I didn't really care.

There are entire chapters following some other characters and I had no idea what was up with that. In the audiobook, there was no way to differentiate these chapters from the chapters about Rachel's investigation (and there was also no way to differentiate each chapter's epigraph from the body of the chapter) - in the book, these special chapters (and the epigraphs) are in italics. These chapters don't get tied into the main plot until 2/3 of the way into the book, but by that point I had completely lost interest. I didn't care for the narrator, either - his women's voices were pretty bad; I may have liked this book a little bit more if I had read it instead of listened.

And what's with the mansions with fancy names like Winterglass and Ringsong? Is this common and I'm just too poor to have encountered it? Is it a Canadian thing? I pulled out a map of the Bluffs but I couldn't find any mansions with names - perhaps they're just not labeled.

The text tells us many times that Rachel and Esa have a very close working relationship with a great deal of respect for each other, but I didn't get a sense of that at all. Rachel seems to have the hots for her boss, envies his car, and gets jelly when he shows interest in another woman. Esa plays his cards so close to his chest that Rachel often has no idea what is going on, she just follows Esa along like she is his favorite puppy, and sometimes she gets to perform by looking at clues. Is that a good working relationship? I don't think so.

The whole relationship between Rachel & Esa's friend, Nate, was weird and difficult to believe; she barely knows this guy, he should be considered a suspect, but she starts blabbing to him about all the details of her case. This is especially egregious since a few chapters later Rachel criticizes Esa for becoming close to Mink. (At this point, Rachel actually defends herself by stating: "I'm just wary of provocative women.")

The more I read ,the more uncomfortable I became with the author's portrayal of women. It's not what I expect from a woman author! All of the women, except Rachel & Audrey (Esa's childhood friend - whom Rachel initially hates on sight because she is so bubbly and attractive - yes, really) were manipulative sex-crazed bitches. It was very yikes. The section describing Melanie at the beginning of Chapter 20 is really over the top:

Melanie arranged herself in a confrontational posture on the hood of Rachel's car.

... Melanie batted her baffled blue eyes at Rachel. She was dressed in leopard-skin leggings so tight they were in danger of splitting across her rear as she twisted from side to side on Rachel's car. With that and the ample cleavage spilling from a leopard-print bra showcased inside a white hoodie, the entire effect dazzled.

... Melanie Blassant slid off the car with the practiced movement of a pole dancer at a strip club. She dusted one hand over her derriere, her gaze taking in the Osmonds. She produced a sexy little smirk.

Khan doesn't seem to like women very much. A male character who is later revealed to have a large collection of photographs of scantily clad women being tortured, is treated with much more dignity than innocent Melanie. That didn't sit right with me. This was, ultimately, the thing that prevented me from enjoying this book.

The writing can be pretty clunky, too. At a climactic scene that seems to be trying to evoke deep emotion, Khan rolls out cliches like "she stared back at him with the eyes of a stranger" (hello there, Payolas!) and "Rachel couldn't tell her tears from the rain" (welcome to the party, Rutger Hauer!!). My involuntary pop culture references yanked me right out of the scene. I still have the Payolas song in my head now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C_fV... Maybe you'll think of Queensryche instead.

Also, I began to suspect that Khan just took Elizabeth George's formula: stocky, somewhat unattractive, intelligent woman cop paired up with rich, handsome suave senior detective, and then she just moved them to Canada, made the woman a hockey player and the man a Muslim.

I know from reading the author bio that war crimes in the Balkans is an issue close to the author's heart. That's laudable, but she went into far more detail than I needed in a murder mystery. Could we stay focused on the murder, please? I got the distinct impression that Khan was worried she'd never get another chance to write another novel, so she threw EVERYTHING into this one. This book gets tons of great reviews, so clearly this approach works for a lot of readers. If you like your mysteries to include a lot of backstory and multiple side stories plus extra info on other topics, this will be a winner for you. ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Jan 30, 2019 Nadine rated it really liked it

Shelves: reading-women, fiction

I read this as part of my 2019 Reading Women Challenge, for the category of "mystery or thriller written by a woman of color." What a revelation this book was. A compelling page Turner with complex characters who have fully developed lives that also delves into the horrors of the massacres in Bosnia/Serbia in the 1990s. I look forward to to reading more of this author's work. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Dec 12, 2017 Lia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: booktube, female-authors, debut

Perhaps closer to a 3 (3.5) but rounding this up to 4 stars as it is a debut.
A story of revenge.
I found the first half to be a touch long-winded, without adding too much extra in the way of setting the foundation of the novel. However, once the actual story began to unravel and the history of the Bosnian Muslim genocide came to light the book became so much more compelling.

I will definitely look for more from this author in the future. Now to find some more books on the Bosnia/Serb conflict. I a ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jul 03, 2018 Carolyn rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery, read-harder-2018

Twists, turns, Bosnian war flashbacks, Canada - this book had it all.

1 like · Like · see review

Mar 09, 2017 HeatherLynn rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-the-north

Wishing I had read her sooner.

1 like · Like · see review

Aug 11, 2015 Sarah rated it liked it

very much a first novel in its overuse of descriptive words and not tying up loose ends, but I learned a lot about the atrocities in 90s Bosnia.

Like · see review

Sep 30, 2015 Eunice rated it it was amazing

This is the best mystery that I have read in a long time, maybe ever. This has everything you expect from a good mystery...fast-paced plot, surprising reveals. In addition, this book has a depth that I have rarely encountered with mysteries. The characters are fantastic but mostly, the author's way of weaving in details about The Bosnian War was so great. While I remember the war from my preteen years, I never really knew much about the details. Learning more about it really makes me fearful of ...more

Like · see review