Return Of Faraz Ali

A spellbinding debut set in Pakistan during the anarchic years of Bhutto's rise to power - a multi-layered and propulsive tale of family, secrets and survival in a corrupt, patriarchal society.

For the first time since childhood, Faraz Ali returns to Lahore's ancient walled city and its red-light district - the home he was plucked from by his father, to give him a chance at respectability. Now a police officer, he's been tasked with covering up the murder of a child prostitute: a crime in which his father, a powerful political figure, may well be implicated. And for the first time in his career, Faraz disobeys orders.

Appalled by the viciousness of the crime and seized by the idea he might find the mother and sister he last saw as a small boy, he cannot stop chasing down the city's labyrinthine alleyways and asking questions that risk shattering his precariously constructed existence. He is unaware that his sister Rozina has also been drawn back to the old city, who escaped her life as a courtesan when young but whose circumstances have turned equally precarious.

As riveting as it is thought-provoking, as profoundly intimate as it is wide in scope, The Return of Faraz Ali is a strikingly assured first novel that poses a timeless question: whom do we choose to protect, and at what price?