I really enjoyed Zoe Ferraris’ latest novel. I love that her novels feature an interesting and strong protagonist, Katya Hijazi. Katya lives in Saudi Arabia and is barely able to do her job as a police lab technician due to the immense restrictions on Saudi women. She bristles under those restrictions, but she is no Westerner. She’s thoroughly a product of her culture, and takes a balanced and logical critique to her culture’s restrictions on women. The fact that Ferraris lived in Saudi Arabia seems to help her portray (what seems like) an accurate perspective of a Saudi woman. All of this is set against the back-drop of Katya’s work in doing her best to assist in solving the latest in a series of grisly crimes and to figure out whether she should marry a man she cares for but whom she fears is perhaps too traditional to ultimately support her career goals.