In Blackwater Falls, Colorado, veteran police officer Harry Cooper is hot on the heels of some local vandals when the situation turns deadly: Harry, believing one of them has a gun, opens fire and Duante Young, a young Black man, is killed. The “gun” in Duante’s hands was a bottle of spray paint. Meanwhile, in nearby Denver, a drug raid goes south and a Latino teen, Mateo Ruiz, is also killed.
The Denver Police force is spread thin between the two cases, and protests on both sides begin. Detective Inaya Rahman and her boss, Lieutenant Waqas Seif, have their work cut out for them as they consider the guilt of the perpetrators and their victims. Harry was, by all accounts, an officer dedicated to the communities he served: Was this shooting truly a terrible mistake? Duante was, to some, a street artist with no prior record, but to others, he was a vandal. Mateo was either in the wrong place at the wrong time, or a dangerous drug dealer. In either case, was lethal force truly necessary?
While Inaya is forced to reckon with her own prejudices and work through those of her colleagues, she must discover the truth of what really happened on one fateful night in Blackwater Falls. A complex and timely mystery, Blood Betrayal proves once again that Ausma Zehanat Khan is a writer at the peak of her powers.
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“Stunning…Khan brilliantly depicts the complexities of her characters and the tensions of a multicultural American community struggling with bias, fear, and corruption. At once suspenseful, moving, and thought-provoking, this is not to be missed."
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Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Blackwater Falls