An American businessman visiting Peshawar, Pakistan, vanishes from his hotel room. The only clue is an enigmatic message in blood scrawled on the Coke machine. A series of murders follows. But in a country where half the population is hidden beneath chadors, tracking a murderer can be difficult.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Both a wickedly funny cross-cultural comedy of errors and an edgy murder mystery, Benard's lively debut begins with the disappearance of timid, pudgy U.S. businessman Micky Malone in Peshawar, an ultraconservative, crime-ridden Pakistani backwater on the Afghan border. As other corpses pile up (victims include a Pakistani banker, a closeted gay Indian movie star and an anti-American Islamic fundamentalist publisher), dogged but inept Detective Iqbal stumbles from suspect to suspect. Bernard choreographs a series of comic misunderstandings (between East and West, men and women), training withering irony on a range of characters: Mara Blake, an earnest American refugee-camp worker reeling from her failed marriage to a wealthy Pakistani; the Maulana, a self-righteous Islamic fundamentalist televangelist; Fatima, his young housemaid and pregnant sex-slave; and the Maulana's nephew and chauffeur, Mushahed, a leftist economics student in love with Fatima. Even if the comedy occasionally sputters with indignation, Benard nimbly swings from farce to social satire, describing with devastating wit and fiery feminist passion Pakistani sexism, censorship, corruption and human rights abuses.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The American director of an Austrian research institute and author of several nonfiction works (e.g., "The Government of God": Iran's Islamic Republic, LJ 6/1/84), Benard debuts with a surprisingly successful black comedy/mystery reminiscent in its droll narrative style of the works of Australian author Peter Carey. The omniscient narrator weaves together seemingly disparate plotlines featuring rabid Islamic religious leaders, corrupt Pakistanis and Afghanis, naive American businessmen, feminists from all cultures and walks of life, journalists and policemen, Afghan refugees, the Taliban, and sexually exploited village girls, creating a compelling whodunit that races along to a bloody climax in the inhospitable desert of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. Micky Malone, a quiet American like so many others trying to follow the rules while doing business in Asia, seems to have been murdered in his Peshawar hotel room, but his body is missing. As more killings occur and notes left at the scene point to a serial killer?clothed in a chaddri, the voluminous woman's coverall de rigueur in the province?tensions mount inexorably. Is the killer working in disguise, or could it be?horrors!?that a lowly woman is offing these creeps? Clever, witty, and politically and culturally on the mark, this book is recommended for all collections.?Jo Manning, formerly with General Books Lib., Reader's Digest
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Debut,
By A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Moghul Buffet (Soho Crime) (Paperback)
This is an interesting part mystery, part travelogue and part droll gentle voice for women's rights in Pakistan. First-time author Benard has written a cute little whodunit whilst employing an usual voice. There is an omniscient third-person narrator telling the story, often digressing into informing the reader on aspects of Pakistani culture. Many of the characters are types, but well-captured ones, and not ones usually seen in everyday reading, much less a mystery. The whole thing takes place in Peshawar, near the Pakistani border with Afghanistan and Benard does a nice job of capturing the different levels of society there (including a nascent Taliban band). The whodunit part is almost by the way, but the characters are easily lovable and hatable, and the whole thing glides along satisfactorily.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Delightful debut novel set in Pakistan,
By
This review is from: Moghul Buffet (Soho Crime) (Paperback)
Cheryl Benard plunks us down in Pakistan with a socially inept American businessman, adds a murder to the stew, sprinkles liberally with women hidden beneath chadors - and stirs in wicked funny narrative. The author is obviously familiar with Pakistan; although she is not a native, she strews her brew with stories about the locals: the police investigator and his modern wife, an ex-pat American who is a champion of the poorest of the poor, and a girl enslaved in a wealthy man's home. Each side character raises timely moral issues within the strictures of the Taliban who lurk in a nearby refugee camp. In spite of this heavy background, Moghul Buffet entertains at every step along the way.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Timely and interesting,
This review is from: Moghul Buffet (Soho Crime) (Paperback)
When businessman Micky Malone disappears from Peshawar on the Pakistani/Afghan border, the Pakistani government becomes alarmed and sends out Detective Iqbal to investigate. As the body count rises Iqbal struggles to find the murderer. He is hampered by his lack of understanding about how the women of Pakistan think and this leads to a great many comic moments and wrong deductions during the investigation. This is a fascinating look at a country in turmoil and also features a brief glimpse of the Taliban before they came to power in Afghanistan
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