City of Veils

A Novel

By Zoe Ferraris (Electronic Book, 2010)

Women in Saudi Arabia are expected to lead quiet lives circumscribed by Islamic law and tradition. But Katya, one of the few women in the medical examiner's office, is determined to make her work mean something.

When the body of a brutally beaten woman is found on the beach in Jeddah, the city's detectives are ready to dismiss the case as another unsolvable murder-chillingly common in a city where the veils of conservative Islam keep women as anonymous in life as the victim is in death. If this is another housemaid killed by her employer, finding the culprit will be all but impossible.

Only Katya is convinced that the victim can be identified and her killer found. She calls upon her friend Nayir for help, and soon discovers that the dead girl was a young filmmaker named Leila, whose controversial documentaries earned her many enemies.

With only the woman's clandestine footage as a guide, Katya and Nayir must confront the dark side of Jeddah that Leila struggled to expose: an underworld of prostitution, violence, exploitation, and jealously guarded secrets. Along the way, they form an unlikely alliance with an American woman whose husband has disappeared. Their growing search takes them from the city's car-clogged streets to the deadly vastness of the desert beyond.

In CITY OF VEILS, award-winning author Zoe Ferraris combines a thrilling, fast-paced mystery with a rare and intimate look into women's lives in the Middle East.

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- Format: Electronic Book
- Price: $9.99 US/$9.99 CAN
- ISBN-13: 9780316089289
- On Sale Date: 08/09/2010
- Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Full Details
Formats Available: Trade Paperback, Electronic Book
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Zoe Ferraris moved to Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of the first Gulf War to live with her then husband and his extended family of Saudi-Palestinian Bedouins, who had never met an American before. She has an MFA from Columbia University and is the author of one previous novel, Finding Nouf. She lives in San Francisco.

PRAISE FOR FINDING NOUF:

"Ferraris shows how the clash of tradition and desire, especially for women, is fraught with danger both hidden and overt... She open[s] Saudi Arabia for mystery fans to reveal the true minds and hearts of its denizens." (Los Angeles Times).
"Remarkable...Its mystery takes place within a culture that has itself largely been under wraps...It's the individual journeys of Nayir and Katya, who abide by their society's strictures even as they are frustrated by them, that elevate Finding Nouf to a larger human drama." (Entertainment Weekly).
"An imaginative and closely observed murder mystery...a literary detective novel that balances the pleasure of plot with finely milled prose." (San Francisco Chronicle).
"A richly detailed tapestry of the country's gender-segregated and pious Muslim culture." (Washington Post).
"Offers a fascinating, often heartbreaking glimps behind the veils of Saudi Arabia's Muslim women." (USA Today).
(Publishers Weekly).