I would like to thank Anne Cater @RandomTTours for my spot on this tour and the publishers for an advanced copy of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own and have not been influenced in any way.
SYNOPSIS
For two years, Jia Khan has been running her late father’s organised crime business in the north of England. So far, her authority has remained unchallenged, but now things are beginning to unravel.
When she finds her father’s notebook recounting his arrival from Pakistan in the 1970s, it awakes an old family feud that could have devastating repercussions for Jia. And worst of all, one of her staff lies brutally slain, his corpse displayed provocatively in her garden despite her sophisticated security.
Someone is getting dangerously close. Could there be a traitor in Jia Khan’s trusted inner circle?
MY THOUGHTS
I did have the first book in this series but I lent it to someone before I had read it and never got it back. But this can be read as a stand-alone novel, although I did feel I missed some of the backstory that I am sure would have been in the first book. However, Jia Khan is now running the family business she is now the Jirga. Not always an easy job as a woman running a crime business. In a culture where men feel the women should be chained to the kitchen sink, despite any qualifications they may have acquired. Not only does she have this duty to perform but she is also mother to Ahad who is now in university, and toddler Lirian she also has Elyas their father back in her life. Juggling family life along with her other duties is not always easy. She has a fierce need to protect her children and family. But also a duty to make it clear to anyone who tries to undermine her will lead to retaliation.
When a dead body is found in her garden, which also turns out to be one of her guards, she needs to know what is going on. It’s not the only body to be found it seems someone is trying to send a message. The killer is dubbed as The Kismet Killer.
Jia finds some diaries of her late father’s dating back to 1974 the early years when he first arrived in England. When she reads of her father’s meeting with Henry Paxton. She has heard of Paxton and decides to conveniently bump into him to see how the land lies. But when she does it is clear that he held resentment for her late father, who he saw as someone who double crossed him and he wasn’t going to let that go.
Despite some hardness that Jia displays she always tries to do what is right for her people, from killing Nowak in book one it has left some destitute with no money and poor housing. Jia wants to put that right. When an attempt is made on her life and her son Ahad is kidnapped Jia is determined to get to the bottom of the attacks. She has taken on Sakina who had previously been used by men for sex, this being the only way she could survive. Jia sees something in her that she recognises a strength, can she take this woman on to help her? When she does find out who kidnapped her son, she deals with it. As she also learns who has killed the bodies around the city she is surprised. In an ideal world she would like to go straight but until all business is sorted it will stay as it is.
This is a great read from start to finish, Saima Mir, writes Jia’s character brilliantly, showing the culture and how others judge her. She is a woman in what is seen as a man’s world. A brilliant gangland crime read, from a different culture prospective. Jia Khan is a great character, she is strong and well developed, believable as are a lot of the other characters. The pace in the book never slowed. The plot was tight and well written. An unputdownable book I whizzed through this engaged and engrossed in the plot as the tension grew. I look forward to the next book in the series.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SAIMA MIR is a journalist who has written for The Times, Guardian and Independent. Her debut novel, The Khan, was a Times Bestseller, a Guardian best crime and thriller and a Waterstones Thriller of the Month. Her essay for It’s Not About The Burqa (Picador) appeared in the Guardian Weekend and received over 250,000 hits online in two days. She contributed to the anthology The Best, Most Awful Job: Twenty Writers Talk Honestly About Motherhood. Saima grew up in
Bradford, where she worked as a rookie crime reporter and now lives in London. Vengeance is her second novel
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