The Khan

Written By Linda Malek

The Khan by Saima Mir
Reviewed by Jess
📘📘📘

Lawyer Jia Khan is so far away from home, in her fancy London apartment with her own independent life. That is, until her father leaves a voicemail: the car is coming to pick you up, be ready. Suddenly Jia is back in the family fold, a family that runs like a business, rules their northern town with an iron fist and fiercely protects their own at any cost. How do you go from a life of fighting crime to a life of perpetrating crime in one night? It happens to Jia, and her whole life is thrown into disarray.

This story is one of bloodlines, honour and revenge buried so deep it takes years to play out. Jia is not your usual protagonist; she is cold and unemotional, flawed and frustrating. Because you can’t read her, you never know what’s coming and that definitely keeps you on your toes! The story picks up pace towards the end as an old school mob family modernises, unifies and works together to take down enemies and restore peace to their hometown streets.

But of course in these situations, you never know who you can really trust. The twist at the end I did not see coming so I was definitely taken my surprise! Saima Mir’s writing is clever, the scenes vividly described and slow unfolding secrets packing the right punch. If you love stories about dark crime, and underworld gangsters this is definitely one for you. This is my first time reading a crime book since I read the Inspector Rebus novels in sixth form so I’m definitely inspired to read more!

Linda Malek

I've always had the urge to set up a forum and voice my thoughts after each read, but never had the confidence to do so alone. 18 months ago, I got my fellow book-loving friends involved and formed The Candid Book Club! Aside from having an exponentially growing to-read pile and deteriorating shortsightedness, we've been lucky to have been invited to publisher events and have attended several talks with our favourite authors (Thank you and long may they continue!) To take a break from the pressures of PhD Chemistry, Jess and I exchanged books all the time and in my youth, I was that kid with the first editions of Harry Potter having already read Gulliver’s travels and some Charles Dickens. At work, my desk is a library and luckily for me I sit next to another bookworm Jack who entertains all the photo-taking. I'm suffering from a chronic case of wanderlust (age-related crisis) so books which are set as far away from home as possible tend to float my boat: Middle East, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Asia...you name it. But if it's got anything to do with Egypt then I'm all over it. So you get the drift...I read all the time, everywhere (on the tube mostly), everyday, a book a week, and very quickly I'm onto the next! And then sometimes there is a book that stops me in my tracks, makes me want to swallow the pages whole, and have it next to me at all times, with some sentences staying with me forever: Shantaram by David Gregory Roberts, anything by Khaled Hosseini, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo (absolute gem of a woman), A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shuklaand and anything by Naguib Mahfouz.

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The Khan