Blood Betrayal

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.