City of Veils by Zoe Ferraris

When Miriam returns to Saudi Arabia where she is living for a year with her husband, she dreads leaving the U.S. and immersing herself once again in the fundamentalist culture of Jeddah. She has observed that many of the male foreigners who accept temporary work in the country become admirers and adopt some of the attitudes towards women. Her husband is no exception and the combination of her clumsiness and unwillingness to wear the mandatory long black cloak and veil means she spends most of her time confined to their small apartment, which is not in the foreigner’s section of town where she would have more freedom of movement.

Her husband is late picking her up at the airport and disappears shortly after they return home. Panicked after a few hours, Miriam contacts friends, his employer and the American consulate. All counsel patience – it is not unusual for the religion police to imprison foreigners for minor violations of the religious codes. It is also common practice for the police to arrest innocent spouses when there is a problem to gather information, so Miriam is reluctant to go to them for help. The police are busy investigating the brutal death of Leilah, an adventurous woman who antagonized her family by ignoring their rules and strangers by filming them. It is soon clear that the Miriam’s husband and the murdered woman have a connection.

Readers who enjoy literary mysteries of with a strong sense of place, like Tana French’s Ireland and Stieg Larsson’s Sweden, will find this portrait of Saudi Arabia unforgettable. The desert and a woman’s role in fundamentalist Islamic culture are thoughtfully drawn. The author lived there with her then-husband after the first Gulf War and though she clearly has issues with the treatment of women, there are major male characters who treat women with respect and love. Her attitude is clearly ambivalent, but both sides of the culture are presented.

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Recommended by Sarah Redman.