Detective Aunty (Kausar Khan Investigates, #1)

by Uzma Jalaluddin

Imran Thakur died with a faint smile on his lips, pleased he had left the world a slightly worse place than he had found it.

“My landlord, Imran Thakur, was murdered. I found him inside my store this morning around five a.m. He had collapsed by the register. He was lying in a pool of blood.”

“Our children’s words are sharpened daggers, and they aim straight for the heart,” she said.

“I don’t want to send my kids to day care and work all day, then return home exhausted. Hamza makes enough money to keep us going. It’s not like I have family in town I can rely on,”

But Kausar was also a survivor from a community of survivors.

It was strange, sleeping in a new house after all these years. Kausar had not slept anywhere but her bed in North Bay in so long, and this mattress was not as firm.

“You’re the most dangerous sort, my friend: the one everyone underestimates.”

“And if I discover that my daughter is guilty of murder?” Kausar asked. May didn’t hesitate. “Then you help her get away with it.”

“But perhaps the best of men are not always the best of spouses? While marriage is presented as an inevitability, the outcome is never supposed to be in doubt. And yet it so often is.”

Even the best marriages demand a compromise of our very self. It can be a hard thing to reconcile when a marriage ends.”

“What did we know of happiness or love? We were taught duty, honor, and expectation,” she said.

“A woman’s ambition is always limited by her circumstances,” Fatima remarked. “And now that we have freedom, we’re too old to enjoy it!”

“A woman who has made her peace with the past is wise, indeed.

“All men have evil in their hearts. It is because they aren’t used to waiting, not like women. Imran was no different. He was never satisfied with what he had. He always wanted more.”

Your job is to live your life, and to love the people who are worthy of you. Okay?”

“‘The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The next best time is today,’”