A Fictional Mass Shooting at a Mosque in Quebec in A Deadly Divide

Mystery writer Ausma Zehanat Khan has been navigating the difficult path of Muslims in the West through her Esa Khattak/Rachel Getty series.  Each volume deals with cases taking place in different types of Muslim communities and the issues they face. The only novel in this series that I've reviewed on this blog was the first one, The Unquiet Dead which dealt with Bosnian Muslims who were survivors of the 20th century horrors in that part of the world. You can find that review here. In A Dangerous Crossing, the fourth book in the series, Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty became embroiled in a case involving Syrian refugees on a Greek island.

The fifth novel, which is the subject of this review, is A Deadly Divide set in a small town in Quebec. I was provided with a digital copy free of charge from the publisher via Net Galley.

                            

St. Isidore in A Deadly Divide definitely isn't a clone of Three Pines, the small town in Quebec that is the setting of most of the mysteries by Louise Penny.  Fans of Louise Penny may object, but my feeling is that Three Pines is a rather typical small town that could be located anywhere in North America.  This is why I tend to prefer the Louise Penny novels that aren't set in Three Pines.

In Ausma Zehanat Khan's Quebec the French speaking Catholic community see themselves as an embattled minority trying to preserve their heritage in the majority Anglophone culture of Canada.   Many readers are unlikely to be sympathetic to their perspective when we are presented in a A Deadly Divide with a number of right wing Quebecois characters who are intolerant racists.  Yet there are also Quebecois who are respectful toward other minorities and mindful of cultural diversity.  The local Catholic priest,
Père Étienne , is most notable in this regard.

In Khan's author's note, she discusses the actual mass shooting at a Quebec mosque in 2017 which inspired the mosque shooting in A Deadly Divide.  The perpetrator of  The Quebec City Mosque Shooting,  Alexandre Bissonnette, denied being a terrorist.  He said he was overcome by fear.   It seems to me that he was probably projecting his own intolerance on Canadian Muslims.   He must have believed that they were all religious fundamentalists who would impose their religion on all Quebecois.   

We all know that when religious fundamentalists achieve positions of power, they destroy religious freedom.   I only need to take a look at 17th century Puritan Massachusetts.  The Puritans were a persecuted religious minority who fled England for religious freedom, and then persecuted religious dissenters in Massachusetts.  Israel provides another example of what happens when religious fundamentalists become dominant.    For discussion of the religious situation in Israel see my post Are The Haredi Jewish Taliban?   So there is good reason to fear fundamentalism in any religion. Yet the assumption that all Muslims are intolerant fanatics is based on ignorance. The Islamic world isn't uniform in its beliefs.  For an excellent overview of the diversity within Islam, I recommend a book by a Christian who interviewed Muslims from a variety of approaches.  It's called Halal Monk, and I reviewed it here.

 One of the reasons why I loved A Deadly Divide is because it gave rise to thoughts like the ones above on the issues it raised, but it was also an excellent mystery.  I was never really certain about whodunit until the reveal at the end of the book.

I consider A Deadly Divide the best book that Ausma Zehanat Khan has written since The Unquiet Dead.  She continues to be one of my favorite mystery authors.