Ausma Zehanat Khan is an award-winning author of crime fiction and fantasy. Her mystery novels put Muslim detectives at the center: Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty in Toronto, and Detective Inaya Rahman in Colorado. She also wrote an epic fantasy quartet. Below you will find all her books, her biography and awards. There is also an honest answer for cozy readers: where to start, and what to expect.
Who Is Ausma Zehanat Khan? The Author’s Biography
Ausma Zehanat Khan is a British-born Canadian writer. She was born in Leicester, England, and grew up in Canada. She holds a B.A. in English literature and sociology from the University of Toronto, and an LL.B. and an LL.M. from the University of Ottawa.
Khan holds a Ph.D. in international human rights law with a research specialization in military intervention and war crimes in the Balkans. That research is the root of her first novel, which deals with the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
Before she turned to fiction, she practiced immigration law in Toronto. She is a former adjunct law professor. She taught international human rights law at Northwestern University, and human rights and business law at York University. She was also the editor in chief of Muslim Girl magazine, a magazine for young Muslim women. She founded the Muslim Writers Index. Her official biography also describes her as a community activist. According to her official website, she now lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her husband.
Ausma Zehanat Khan Books: All Three Series
She has written three series: two crime series with Muslim detectives, and one fantasy series. Here are all her books, series by series, in the order they came out. For a single list of every title by year, see our Ausma Zehanat Khan books in order guide.
The Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty Series: From The Unquiet Dead to A Deadly Divide
Inspector Esa Khattak is a second-generation Canadian Muslim. He leads a unit that handles cases involving minority communities. Sergeant Rachel Getty, his partner, comes from a police family. The Getty mystery series, as some readers call it, is a police procedural set mostly in Toronto and Ontario.
- The Unquiet Dead (2015)
- The Language of Secrets (2016)
- Among the Ruins (2017)
- A Dangerous Crossing (2018; in the UK: No Place of Refuge)
- A Deadly Divide (2019)
There is also an e-book novella, A Death in Sarajevo (2017). In The Unquiet Dead, a man falls to his death from the Scarborough Bluffs. He may have been a Serbian war criminal living under a new name. Later cases take the detectives to Iran, to the refugee camps in Greece and to a mosque shooting in Quebec.
Blackwater Falls: The Detective Inaya Rahman Series
Her new crime series moves to Colorado. Detective Inaya Rahman works in the Community Response Unit of the Denver Police, with her boss, Lieutenant Waqas Seif.
- Blackwater Falls (2022)
- Blood Betrayal (2023)
- The Lines We Cross (announced for 2027)
In Blackwater Falls, the body of Razan Elkader, a Syrian teenager, is found posed in the local mosque. Blood Betrayal follows two police shootings, one in Blackwater Falls and one in Denver. The third book is set during campus protests, after a Palestinian scholar is killed.
The Khorasan Archives Fantasy Series: From The Bloodprint to The Bladebone
Khan is also the author of the Khorasan Archives, a high fantasy quartet published by Harper Voyager, a HarperCollins imprint. Arian, one of the Companions of Hira, fights the Talisman, a movement that burns books and oppresses women. Her fantasy debut was The Bloodprint.
- The Bloodprint (2017)
- The Black Khan (2018)
- The Blue Eye (2019)
- The Bladebone (2020)
In What Order Should You Read Ausma Zehanat Khan’s Books?
Read each series by its numbers. The three series do not depend on each other, so you can start with any of them.
- For crime fiction, start with The Unquiet Dead. It is her first novel, and the later Esa Khattak books build on it.
- For a US setting, start with Blackwater Falls. It needs no earlier book.
- For fantasy, begin with The Bloodprint.
Is Ausma Zehanat Khan a Cozy Mystery Author?
No, and we would rather say it plainly. Her books are serious crime novels about war crimes, terrorism, hate crimes and police violence. There is no small-town bakery here, and the deaths are not gentle.
So why is she on a cozy mystery site? Because Muslim detectives are still rare, and so are Muslim women authors of crime fiction. Many of our readers look for exactly that. If you want the same kind of hero in a gentler book, try the Detective Aunty novels by Uzma Jalaluddin. For more names, see our list of Muslim fiction authors.
Ausma Zehanat Khan’s Awards and Honors
- The Unquiet Dead won the Barry Award and the Arthur Ellis Award (Crime Writers of Canada) for best first novel. It also won the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for best first novel, and it was a Macavity Award finalist.
- Blackwater Falls was a finalist for the 2023 Nero Award.
- Blood Betrayal won the 2024 Colorado Book Award for mystery, and it was a WILLA Literary Award finalist.
- Ramadan was named a 2019 Information Book Award Honour Book by the Children’s Literature Roundtable of Canada.
Frequently Asked Questions About Ausma Zehanat Khan
How many books has Ausma Zehanat Khan written?
Eleven novels: five Esa Khattak mysteries, two Blackwater Falls books and four Khorasan Archives books. With the novella and her non-fiction book, that makes 13. A third Inaya Rahman novel is coming.
Does Ausma Zehanat Khan write nonfiction or short stories?
Yes. Ramadan (2018) is a middle-grade non-fiction book about the holy month, published by Orca Books as part of the Orca Origins series. Khan’s nonfiction essay “Origins and Destinations” appears in Private Investigations, an anthology published by Seal Press. She has also written a short story for the fantasy anthology Sword Stone Table. “The Yellow Line”, an Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty crime story, appears in The Perfect Crime.
Are there audiobooks available by Ausma Zehanat Khan?
Yes, her novels are available as audiobooks. Blood Betrayal, for example, is read by Fareeda Pasha.
Where can I find interviews or podcasts with Ausma Zehanat Khan?
She has spoken on CBC Radio, the BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.
Where can I connect with Ausma Zehanat Khan?
Her official website is ausmazehanatkhan.com, where you can sign up for her newsletter. She is on Instagram and Threads as @azkhanbooks, and she also has a Facebook page.
Who writes books like Ausma Zehanat Khan?
Try Parker Bilal, whose Makana novels follow a Sudanese detective in Cairo. For more authors, browse all cozy mystery writers on this site.