Blood betrayal /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A complex and timely mystery, Blood Betrayal proves once again that Ausma Zehanat Khan is a writer at the peak of her powers.

"Inaya is a fabulous character."-- New York Times Book Review , "Editor's Choice" on Blackwater Falls

In Blackwater Falls, Colorado, veteran police officer Harry Cooper is hot on the heels of some local vandals when the situation turns deadly: believing one of them has a gun, Harry opens fire and Duante Reed, a young Black man, is killed. The "gun" in his hands was a bottle of spray paint. Meanwhile, in nearby Denver, a drug raid goes south and a Latino teen, Mateo Ruiz, is also killed.

The Denver Police force is spread thin between the two cases, and protests on both sides begin. Detective Inaya Rahman and her boss, Lieutenant Waqas Seif, have their work cut out for them to consider the guilt of the perpetrators and their victims. Harry was by all accounts, an officer dedicated to the communities he served. Was this shooting truly a terrible mistake? Is Kelly cut from the same bad cloth as his father? Duante was, to some, a street artist with no prior record, but to others, he was a vandal. Mateo was either in the wrong place at the wrong time, or a dangerous drug dealer. In either case, was lethal force necessary?

While Inaya is forced to reckon with her own prejudices and work through those of her colleagues, she must discover the truth of what really happened on one fateful night in Blackwater Walls.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Khan follows up 2022's Blackwater Falls with another excellent mystery focused on police violence, bias, and corruption in Colorado. Blackwater Falls cop Harry Cooper is chasing vandals one night when he encounters Black graffiti artist Duante Young and thinks the young man pulls a gun on him. Harry shoots Duante dead, only to discover that the object in his hand was a spray paint can. Det. Inaya Rahman and her Community Response Unit, which handles cases involving police accountability and vulnerable populations, are called in. The same night, a young Hispanic man named Mateo Ruiz is fatally shot during a drug raid in nearby Denver. The most likely shooter is patrolman Kelly Broda, the son of the man who spearheaded a violent attack on Inaya when both were police officers in Chicago. Racial tensions roil the metro area as Inaya, activist attorney Areesha Adams, and criminal psychologist Catalina Hernandez discover that someone lined up a row of garbage cans to corner Young in the cul-de-sac where he was shot. Meanwhile, Ruiz's killing appears linked to a cadre of white supremacists within the Denver police force. Richly drawn characters and nuanced depictions of contemporary policing make this a winner. Readers will be eager to hear more from Inaya soon. (Nov.)

Booklist Review

Detective Inaya Rahman's past in the Chicago Police Department comes back to haunt her in the second book in Khan's Colorado-set Blackwater Falls series. John Broda, the man who abused and humiliated Inaya because of her Islamic faith, has come to town seeking her help. Broda's son, a Denver street officer, has been accused of shooting an unarmed man, but Broda is convinced his son is innocent and offers Inaya a deal she can't resist. Meanwhile, a young artist is gunned down by a veteran officer, and the hostility between the sheriff and the Community Response Unit continues. Like Blackwater Falls (2022), this is a compelling and deeply emotional thriller. Khan tackles the heartbreak of losing a child as well as the internal struggle faced by officers of color when forced to choose between a call to service and their communities. As always, she addresses these issues with straightforward honesty and grace. Highly recommended for those who enjoy complex procedurals with a human touch, such as Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series.

Kirkus Book Review

Near-concurrent police shootings rock Colorado. During a routine patrol of a quiet residential neighborhood, Harry Cooper, a white officer with the Blackwater Falls Sheriff's Department, shoots and kills Duante Young, a 20-year-old Black street artist whose spray paint Harry allegedly mistakes for a gun. That same evening in nearby Denver, another white cop shoots and kills a 22-year-old Latino bystander, Mateo Ruiz, in the course of a botched drug raid. Lt. Waqas Seif, head of the Denver Police Department's Community Response Unit, instructs Det. Inaya Rahman and her CRU colleagues to focus on investigating the Blackwater Falls incident: "The [Denver] raid is the Drug Task Force's business, not ours." Then Inaya receives a visit from John Broda, a racist bully who terrorized and physically assaulted her when they worked together at the Chicago PD, prompting her exit. John's son, Kelly, is the Denver cop indicated in Mateo's murder and John wants Inaya's help exonerating him. In exchange, John will produce evidence sufficient to convict a fellow CPD officer of beating a young Black man to death--a case Inaya abandoned upon leaving Illinois. Conflicted, she must now choose between obeying orders and righting past wrongs. Khan continues in the vein of her first Det. Inaya Rahman novel, Blackwater Falls (2022), bringing fresh relevance to the subgenre's timeworn conventions. Melodramatic stereotypes pepper the intersectionally diverse cast, diminishing the effect of the twisty, multifaceted story and its thorny politics, but the care Khan takes in developing Duante and Mateo as nuanced characters largely compensates. A penetrating, of-the-moment police procedural. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

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 the author of the award-winning Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty mystery series, which begins with The Unquiet Dead , as well as the critically acclaimed Khorasan Archives fantasy series. Her crime series featuring Detective Inaya Rahman begins with Blackwater Falls . She is also a contributor to the anthologies Private Investigations, Sword Stone Table, and The Perfect Crime , and the former Editor-in-Chief of Muslim Girl magazine. A British-born Canadian and former adjunct law professor, Khan now lives in DC with her husband.