The Lover

A Sufi Mystery , #1

eBook, 306 pages

Published May 15, 2019

ASIN:
B07S9PDDXN
5 stars (1 review)

It’s easier to solve a crime than solve yourself

Baghdad, 295 Hijri (907 CE)

Zaytuna just wants to be left alone to her ascetic practices and nurse her dark view of the world. But when an impoverished servant girl she barely knows comes and begs her to bring some justice to the death of a local boy, she is forced to face the suffering of the most vulnerable in Baghdad and the emotional and mystical legacy of her mother, a famed ecstatic whose love for God eclipsed everything.

The Lover introduces us to the emotional, spiritual, and social world of medieval Baghdad through the lives of the great Sufi mystics, washerwomen, Hadith scholars, tavern owners, enslaved servants, corpsewashers, police, and children indentured to serve in the homes of the wealthy.

1 edition

reviewed The Lover by Laury Silvers (The Sufi Mysteries Quartet, #1)

A Peak Behind the Veil

5 stars

I almost didn't finish this book because I didn't understand it. Steeped in historical detail about a time and people I know little about, the story unfolded slowly, almost languorously. I even put it down to start another but it pulled me back. I'm glad it did.

It's a twisty, turny murder mystery with red herrings and hidden clues wrapped in head scarfs and turbans. Zaytuna, a mystic torturing herself with her own past. Her brother, too large, too strong, too hard on himself, but a fine observer of others. The detective, Ammar. And of course, the corpse, Zayd, who's only time on stage was spent face down on the packed earth.

Stir them together with a generous helping of political intrigue, religious fervor, and a world a millennium gone to get the rich stew of a story I found satisfying to the end - once I was able to …