The Unquiet Dead is the first novel by Ausma Zehanat Khan, published in 2015. It is a crime novel set in Toronto, and it opens the series about detectives Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty. A man falls from a cliff, and the case leads back to the Bosnian genocide. Below: the plot, the characters, the history behind it and what critics and readers say.
What Is The Unquiet Dead About? The Plot
The body of Christopher Drayton is found at the foot of the cliffs of the Scarborough Bluffs. At first, it looks like an accidental fall from a cliff. Then detective Esa Khattak and partner Rachel Getty are called in to investigate the death of Christopher Drayton.
As Rachel and Khattak dig deeper into the dead man’s life, a darker question soon becomes apparent. Drayton may have been Drazen Krstić, a Bosnian Serb war criminal with ties to the Srebrenica massacre. If so, he built a new life in Canada under another name. Letters that document his crimes turn up in his safe.
If that is Drayton’s true identity, many people had a reason to want him dead. His fiancée, Melanie Blessant, and her daughters had motives. So did others close to him. The police investigation has to answer two questions at once: did the man just fall, and who was he really?
Who Are the Major Characters in the Novel?
- Esa Khattak heads the Community Policing Section, a new federal unit that handles minority-sensitive cases. He is a second-generation Canadian Muslim.
- Rachel Getty is his junior partner. She has an abusive ex-cop father and a brother who went missing.
- Christopher Drayton is the dead man, and possibly Krstić.
- Nathan Clare is a famous writer, Drayton’s neighbour and Khattak’s childhood friend.
- Mink Norman works at Ringsong and belongs to the local Bosniak community.
Khattak and Getty’s partnership is the backbone of the whole series, and it grows over the books that follow.
Is The Unquiet Dead a True Story? The Srebrenica Massacre of 1995
No. It is a novel based on real history, but the story and its characters are fiction. In July 1995, during the Bosnian War, Bosnian Serb forces killed more than 8,000 Bosniaks at Srebrenica, almost all of them men and boys. International courts have ruled it a genocide.
Khan weaves witness statements and flashbacks from the war into the story. These chapters show the atrocities of war and the genocide of Bosnian Muslims from the side of the victims. There are notes at the end of the book, including an author’s note on the war in the former Yugoslavia. Later editions also carry reading group questions.
The author knows this history well. She holds a PhD in international human rights law, and her research focused on war crimes in the Balkans.
The Context of the Novel: Canada and the Cost of Justice
The book asks what happens when a man accused of war crimes lives quietly in a Toronto suburb. Can justice still be done twenty years later? If the courts fail, may a victim act alone? The story keeps coming back to this question.
The second layer is the detective’s own position. The Government of Canada created his unit for cases in minority groups, above all the Muslim community of Toronto. As a Muslim detective, he stands between the community and the state, and both sides watch him. The novel shows Canadian multiculturalism up close: survivors of the war, Muslim families and old-stock Canadians live side by side, with very different memories.
Themes of the Novel
- War and genocide, and how the past can haunt survivors decades later
- Justice against vengeance, and who has the right to punish
- Faith and identity inside a Canadian police force
- Family and grief, through Rachel’s missing brother
- Friendship and loyalty, tested by an old bond with Nathan Clare
Is It Worth Reading? Our Review of What Critics and Readers Say
This debut novel won two major prizes for a first crime novel. One was the Barry Award, the other the Arthur Ellis Award, part of the Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence. It also won the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award.
Critics praised it widely. Kirkus called it “a poignant, elegantly written mystery laced with complex characters.” Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review. The Washington Post called it “a many-faceted gem,” and the LA Times said it “transcends genre.”
Not everyone agrees. Readers on Goodreads often complain about the long history lessons. They also say the mystery is solved more by confession than by detection. Some find the pace slow and the secondary characters thin. The book is thought-provoking rather than a page-turner, and its grip comes from the subject, not the puzzle.
If you want crime fiction that dares to tackle real atrocities, this is a strong start to a series. If you want a light whodunit, it is not that book.
Is The Unquiet Dead a Cozy Mystery?
No. This is a police procedural, not a cozy, and fans of procedurals will feel more at home with it. The protagonist is a professional detective, and some chapters describe violence, rape and ethnic cleansing in detail. We list it because Khan is one of the best-known Muslim crime writers, and our readers often ask for mysteries with Muslim detectives. You will find more on our Muslim fiction authors page.
Who Is the Author? Other Books by Ausma Zehanat Khan
Ausma Zehanat Khan was born in Britain and grew up in Canada. She practised immigration law and taught at Northwestern and York universities before she turned to fiction. Khan’s books now cover three series:
- the Khattak and Getty novels, which begin here;
- the Blackwater Falls novels, a US crime series with detective Inaya Rahman;
- the Khorasan Archives, a fantasy series that starts with The Bloodprint.
After this book, the series continues with The Language of Secrets (2016) and Among the Ruins (2017). Then come the novella A Death in Sarajevo (2017), A Dangerous Crossing (2018) and A Deadly Divide (2019). The full reading order is on our Khattak and Getty series page.
Where to Buy It, the Audiobook and a Reading Guide
The novel was first published on January 13, 2015, by Minotaur Books in the US. No Exit Press published the UK edition in 2017. It is sold as a hardcover, paperback and ebook on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and in independent bookshops.
Yes, there is an audiobook. Peter Ganim narrates it, in an edition from HighBridge, and it won an AudioFile Earphones Award. You can find it on Audible.
For book clubs, reading guides are available on BookBrowse, LitLovers and Criminal Element. Be careful: some guide questions reveal who killed Drayton, so read them after the book.
Quick Facts
- Series: Rachel Getty and Esa Khattak, book #1
- Author: Ausma Zehanat Khan
- Published: January 13, 2015, Minotaur Books; UK: No Exit Press, 2017
- Genre: police procedural
- Setting: Toronto; flashbacks to Bosnia and Herzegovina
- The hook: a man falls to his death, and he may have been a war criminal
- Awards: Barry and Arthur Ellis, Best First Novel
- Audiobook: narrated by Peter Ganim
- Content warnings: genocide, war atrocities, rape, violence, suicide
Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Unquiet Dead based on a true story?
The characters and the murder are fiction. The massacre and the genocide it describes are real history.
Is it the first book in the series?
Yes. It is book 1 and the best place to start.
Has the book been adapted for TV?
No. We have found no film or TV adaptation.
What should I read next?
Read The Language of Secrets, the next novel in the series. For another Canadian police series with more warmth, try Still Life by Louise Penny. For a Muslim detective in Cairo, try The Golden Scales by Parker Bilal.