Ausma Zehanat Khan writes crime fiction with Muslim detectives at the center, and her books take on war crimes, terrorism and hate crimes. Her best-known mystery series follows Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty, two police detectives in Toronto. It begins with The Unquiet Dead (2015), which won the Arthur Ellis and Barry awards for Best First Novel. Here are all the Ausma Zehanat Khan books in order: the Esa Khattak series, the Blackwater Falls novels and the Khorasan Archives fantasy series.
A fair warning first. These are police procedurals, not cozy mysteries. The deaths are real, the politics are heavy and there is no bakery in sight. We list them on this site because Muslim lead characters are still rare in crime fiction, and many of our readers look for exactly that.
Ausma Zehanat Khan Books in Publication Order
This is the correct order of every Ausma Zehanat Khan book, all three series together, by year of first publication. The years are the first US editions.
- The Unquiet Dead (2015) – Khattak and Getty 1
- The Language of Secrets (2016) – Khattak and Getty 2
- A Death in Sarajevo (2017) – Khattak and Getty novella
- Among the Ruins (2017) – Khattak and Getty 3
- The Bloodprint (2017) – Khorasan Archives 1
- Ramadan (2018) – non-fiction book for middle-grade readers
- The Black Khan (2018) – Khorasan Archives 2
- A Dangerous Crossing (2018) – Khattak and Getty 4
- The Blue Eye (2019) – Khorasan Archives 3
- A Deadly Divide (2019) – Khattak and Getty 5
- The Bladebone (2020) – Khorasan Archives 4
- Blackwater Falls (2022) – Inaya Rahman 1
- Blood Betrayal (2023) – Inaya Rahman 2
- The Lines We Cross (2027) – Inaya Rahman 3, announced
If you only want one series, use the lists below. The books in publication order jump between crime and fantasy, but each series has its own chronological order.
The Rachel Getty and Esa Khattak Series in Order
Inspector Esa Khattak is a second-generation Canadian Muslim who works on cases that touch minority communities. Sergeant Rachel Getty is his partner, a tough detective from a police family. The mystery series has five novels and one novella:
- The Unquiet Dead (2015)
- The Language of Secrets (2016)
- Among the Ruins (2017)
- A Dangerous Crossing (2018, published in the UK as No Place of Refuge)
- A Deadly Divide (2019)
The e-book novella A Death in Sarajevo (2017) sits between books 2 and 3. There is also a short Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty crime story, “The Yellow Line”, in the anthology The Perfect Crime.
The Unquiet Dead, The Language of Secrets and Among the Ruins
In The Unquiet Dead, a man named Christopher Drayton falls to his death from the Scarborough Bluffs in Toronto. Detectives Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty soon learn he may have been living under a new name. He may have been a Serbian war criminal from the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. In The Language of Secrets, an undercover informant is killed at the training camp of a terrorist cell. Among the Ruins sends Esa to Iran, where a Canadian-Iranian filmmaker has died in Evin prison.
A Dangerous Crossing and A Deadly Divide
In A Dangerous Crossing, Audrey Clare, who runs an aid group on a Greek island, goes missing after two murders. The case takes the detectives into the Syrian refugee crisis, from the camps in Greece to the Turkish-Syrian border. In A Deadly Divide, eight people are shot dead in a mosque in a small Quebec town. It looks like a hate crime, but Esa and Rachel suspect there is more to the story.
The Blackwater Falls Series: Detective Inaya Rahman in Order
Her newer crime series moves to Colorado and to Detective Inaya Rahman, a Muslim officer in the Community Response Unit of the Denver Police.
- Blackwater Falls (2022)
- Blood Betrayal (2023)
- The Lines We Cross (2027, announced)
In Blackwater Falls, girls from immigrant families have been going missing for months. The sheriff does little about the missing girls. Then the body of the Syrian teenager Razan Elkader is found posed in a mosque. Detective Inaya Rahman and Lieutenant Waqas Seif are sent to the case. Blood Betrayal follows two police shootings in Colorado, and it won the 2024 Colorado Book Award for mystery. The Lines We Cross is set during campus protests, when a Palestinian professor is killed.
The Khorasan Archives in Order: From The Bloodprint to The Bladebone
Khan is also the author of the Khorasan Archives, an epic fantasy series from Harper Voyager. It is a quartet:
- The Bloodprint (2017)
- The Black Khan (2018)
- The Blue Eye (2019)
- The Bladebone (2020)
The heroine is Arian, a member of the Companions of Hira, women whose magic comes from the words of a sacred scripture. With her apprentice Sinnia, she fights the Talisman, a cruel movement led by the One-Eyed Preacher. The Talisman suppresses knowledge and subjugates women, so the fight is about knowledge itself.
Where to Start Reading Ausma Zehanat Khan’s Books
For crime fiction, start with The Unquiet Dead. It is her first novel, and it won the awards. The later Esa Khattak books build on what happens in it. If you want a US setting, Blackwater Falls is a clean start, because it needs no earlier book. Fantasy readers should begin with The Bloodprint.
How Many Books Has Ausma Zehanat Khan Written?
Ausma Zehanat Khan has written 11 novels: five in the Esa Khattak series, two in the Blackwater Falls series and four in the Khorasan Archives. Add the novella A Death in Sarajevo and the children’s book Ramadan, and she has 13 books out. The Lines We Cross will be number 14.
Does Ausma Zehanat Khan Write Standalone Books? Ramadan (Orca)
Not in adult fiction. Every novel belongs to one of her three series. Her one standalone book is Ramadan (Orca, 2018), a non-fiction book for middle-grade readers about the holy month. She has also written short stories for anthologies.
About the Author
Ausma Zehanat Khan is a British-born writer who lived and worked in Canada for many years. She holds a BA in literature and sociology from the University of Toronto and law degrees from the University of Ottawa. She also has a Ph.D. in international human rights law. Her doctorate focused on military intervention and war crimes in the Balkans, which explains the Srebrenica massacre at the heart of her first novel.
Before she wrote fiction, she practiced immigration law in Toronto. She taught at Northwestern University and York University. She was also editor-in-chief of Muslim Girl magazine. More about her life is on our Ausma Zehanat Khan author page.
Similar Authors: Vaseem Khan and Other Muslim Crime Writers
Readers often mix her up with Vaseem Khan, a British crime writer with a similar name. He writes the Baby Ganesh Agency series, set in Mumbai, and the Malabar House series about India’s first female police detective. Both series are best read in order, from the first book. For more crime and mystery novels with Muslim main characters, see our list of Muslim fiction authors. You can also browse all book series in order on this site.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the correct order of Ausma Zehanat Khan’s books?
Read each series by its numbers. The first books are:
- The Unquiet Dead for Esa Khattak;
- Blackwater Falls for Inaya Rahman;
- The Bloodprint for the fantasy books.
Is the Esa Khattak series finished?
The last novel, A Deadly Divide, came out in 2019. The author has not announced a sixth book, and her new crime novels belong to the Blackwater Falls series.
Are the Esa Khattak books cozy mysteries?
No. They are serious police procedurals about murder and human rights. If you want a gentler read, try our cozy mystery series lists.