And Grant You Peace

August 11, 2014
In Flora’s ponderous fourth Joe Burgess mystery (after 2012’s Redemption), the Portland, Maine, detective’s fuse is set off when someone torches the Somali community’s mosque, trapping a young woman and her baby inside. As Burgess investigates Portland’s notoriously reclusive Somali refugees, crises abound: the baby’s body is almost stolen, the Somali translator is beaten, and the imam’s son is shot. The pile-on of disasters sets the heart pounding, but there’s little else to keep the reader engaged. The many detectives are so similar that they begin to blur together—all are tough, cynical, and deeply bitter about being forced to respect criminals’ rights. Portland’s Muslim inhabitants, meanwhile, hate Americans, beat their female relatives, oppress women, fund terrorists, traffic in child sexual slavery, and secretly paint anti-Muslim slurs around the city to garner public sympathy. Indeed, Flora’s portrayal of Somali Muslims is such a jumble of stereotypes that there’s little to distinguish it from bad parody.