The Museum Detective by Maha Khan Phillips
Kudos to publisher SOHO Crime for their continued commitment to presenting international, multicultural mysteries and thrillers, providing readers with exciting, well-crafted plots and fresh viewpoints. London-based, multi-award-winning journalist and novelist Maha Khan Phillips was raised in Karachi, Pakistan, the setting for The Museum Detective, now available in paperback. This series debut featuring archaeologist Dr. Gulfsa (Gul) Delani was inspired by a true antiquities scandal involving fakery that occurred in Pakistan in 2000.
A Brilliant and Unconventional Heroine
Gul is a multilingual curator at the Museum of Heritage and History, possessor of multiple advanced degrees from the American University in Cairo and Cambridge University, with expertise in Egyptology and forensic archaeology as well as in-depth knowledge of several ancient civilizations and their languages. Brilliant and outspoken, she has defied expectations and sexual discrimination her entire life. This thoroughly modern, 36-year-old woman eschewed marriage, which dismayed Bilal, her estranged financier brother, and her sister-in-law Sania. Her chosen family consists of perennially gruff Mrs. Fernandez, a Goan devout Christian and supremely capable museum office manager who calls everyone “Charlie”, and dedicated graduate student researchers Rana and Hamza. Teenage street urchin Ejaz, her own “Zaibunnisa Street irregular”, risks his life observing the criminals that operate in subterranean central Karachi. While she keeps them organised and well-fed, Mrs. Fernandez would loathe for anyone to recognize the love, loyalty and stability she provides in the often hostile museum bureaucratic hierarchy. Gul volunteers with her at a church-run shelter for street children.
Gul remains haunted by the mysterious disappearance three years ago of Mahnaz, her precocious, activist teenage niece. When her phone rings in the middle of the night with the Sindh police calling, she longs for a breakthrough. Instead, she has been requested to assist with the caretaking of a mummy curiously discovered during a major narcotics investigation in a remote desert region of western Pakistan. This treasure is complete with a gold-encrusted and bejewelled sarcophagus decorated with symbols from the Achaemenid Empire, an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great circa 550 BC.
An Ancient Discovery Sparks International Chaos
DSP (Deputy Superintendent Police) Farhan Akthar arranged for Gul to be driven to the site across the vast desert near the Arabian Sea. Caves in the area provide ideal hiding places for drug traffickers and other miscreants. Dr. Delani is shocked to see multiple police cars and ambulances on the scene before learning a gun battle had taken place which left the smugglers dead, several police officers injured and a cuneiform-inscribed casket containing the aforesaid mummy along with 250 kilos of pure heroin worth about 35 million dollars. It’s the archaeological find of a lifetime, and if the mummy proves to be Persian in origin rather than Egyptian, it will be unique and absolutely priceless culturally as well as monetarily.
The mummy is transferred to the climate-controlled environment in the Heritage Museum for preservation, examination, authentication and the opportunity to translate the cuneiform inscriptions. That evening, Gul and her researchers interrupt a theft in progress but are unable to thwart the two gun-toting thieves whom she recognizes from the police transport. When news leaks of the discovery but not the theft, a furor erupts between several nations, with Iran prematurely calling for the repatriation of the mummy due to its presumed cultural heritage and Islamic fundamentalists demanding its immediate burial. Historically, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Islam did not engage in the practice of mummification, and the cuneiform script made it unlikely to have originated in Pakistan. It is a mystery and will be a challenging puzzle for top archaeologists such as Gul Delani. DSP Akthar suspects the discovery is linked to a slippery drug overlord known to the police only as Saayaa or “Shadow”.
Corruption and Deadly Stakes
Fending off the publicity-hungry museum hierarchy, Gul begins research on the coffin left behind as well as on photographs she has taken. She exhorts her Cambridge colleague, eminent forensic historian and University College London Professor Dr. Harry Gilbert, to fly to Karachi to share knowledge and help verify or discredit the find as a hoax.
There are unanticipated life-threatening perils ahead from the criminals involved as well as the exposure of corruption rife within both the police and the museum staff. Additionally, there are shocking revelations of family lies and secrets to be laid bare. The action in The Museum Detective is arresting and fast-paced, combined with exhilarating top-flight sleuthing and superb writing by Maha Khan Phillips as Eastern and Western cultures clash in the international melting pot of Karachi.
About Maha Khan Phillips:
Maha Khan Phillips was born in Karachi, Pakistan. She is the author of Beautiful from This Angle, The Mystery of the Aagnee Ruby and The Curse of Mohenjodaro. She is a multiple award-winning financial journalist and editor and writes across a number of different journals and magazines. She lives in London with her husband and son and frequently visits Pakistan, where she has a keen interest in exploring archaeological sites.
