I wish I’d made chai for this occasion, but the truth is that I didn’t intend to try and solve Detective Aunty until I had a flash of insight in the middle of Chapter 26 that convinced me I knew who the killer was. If you’ve read the book, or oh my gosh, if you’re Uzma Jalaluddin herself, and know that the vital clue has not been dropped yet by this point, then please feel free to laugh at my hubris! Either way, I’m going to go with my gut and lock my guess in.

As some of my friends know, Uzma Jalaluddin is my die-hard auto-buy author. I loved Ayesha at Last, absolutely adored Hana Khan Carries On, and gave my heart over to Much Ado About Nada. And as long-time readers of this blog will know, I absolutely ADORE cozy mysteries, especially those by Agatha Christie, so when I learned about Detective Aunty, I had it on my buy list long before the actual release date.

Kausar Khan is a widow in her mid-50s who has always had a knack for observation and mystery-solving. When her mid-30s daughter, Sana, is the prime suspect in a murder, Kausar leaves her comfy home in North Bay to help her daughter out. The victim, Imran Thakur, is the landlord at the shopping plaza where Sana owns a desi clothing store; he was found at her store before hours, stabbed with a dagger from the window display. By many accounts, Imran is a terrible person, who cares only about making money, and isn’t above taking advantage of people to get it.

Long-time Jalaluddin fans will be thrilled to note that the mystery takes place in the Golden Crescent shopping plaza in Scarborough. It’s a nice shoutout to the Golden Crescent neighbourhood in Jalaluddin’s romances, though if there are any fun crossover Easter eggs, I missed them. (I was especially on the look out for Three Sisters Biryani Poutine to make an appearance, but alas, no.)

Long-time mystery fans will enjoy Kausar Khan as a detective. The obvious parallel is Miss Marple: like Christie’s sleuth, Kausar is often underestimated due to her age, and strategic meekness with a dupatta. Like the Marple novels, Detective Aunty is an insightful skewering of society’s often dismissive attitudes towards older women. Kausar gets away with bold questioning of suspects, and at one point, with actually getting caught snooping in a private area, simply because people assume she’s just after gossip for the neighbourhood aunties’ group chat.

Jalaluddin adds her own touches to the Marple archetype: Kausar is much younger for one, only in her mid-50s. This opens up possibilities for romance (LOVE that subplot!), and also a different sort of energy: while Marple is content to knit and quietly make her observations, Kausar is set for her next stage in life. Having married young, and been a stay-at-home mom all her life, widowhood now gives her the chance to live on her own, and discover for herself who she is, independent of her husband and his career. There are cultural and generational nuances that add richness to Kausar’s journey, and I’m totally here for it.

Kausar is also more overtly feisty than Miss Marple. While Christie’s detective veils her razor sharp barbs with a gentle veneer of wide-eyed harmlessness, Kausar doesn’t hesitate to let hers fly. For example, while dealing with an infuriatingly condescending man, she snaps that they’re so close in age that he should call her Mrs. Khan, not Aunty. Then she gives him a saccharine sweet smile, because, of course, she was only being polite.

Finally, Kausar also has shades of Sherlock Holmes. She makes observations about physical details, that then lead to major clues. The parallels are a bit more subtle, but like Holmes, her talent for observation doesn’t always rub people the right way.

Overall, I’m absolutely adoring this book. I love Kausar, and I LOVE her sidekick BFFs, May in North Bay and Fatima in Toronto. I also like the romance brewing between her and the silver fox lawyer, and I love all the complexities of her family relationships. There’s so much rich material here for the series, and I’m excited to see where Jalaluddin takes this.

Did I Solve It?

No, I didn’t, not even close. I was so far off-base, in fact, that the character I’d selected as the killer wasn’t even invited to Kausar’s big reveal gathering. When I fail, I fail spectacularly.

Honestly, the actual big reveal made me sad. Jalaluddin did a great job at making me care for some of these characters, and I felt bad for how things are likely to unfold for them after this reveal.

On the bright side, the novel does end with a bit of a teaser for the next mystery. Kausar Khan will be back at Golden Crescent someday (hopefully soon!), and I’m really excited to see more of her story unfold.

***SPOILERS BELOW***

My Verdict

I think Imran’s widow, Parveen, is the mastermind behind his death. She isn’t happy with her life with him or in Toronto, and views his death as a means for her to be free to return to Pakistan and enjoy life on her own. She also knew he was greedy and embroiled in shady business deals, so she knew she needed him dead while she could still get a sizeable inheritance from him.

But I don’t think she stabbed him herself; rather, she manipulated someone to do the deed. She tells Kausar that women don’t stab; they’re more likely to poison (literally or metaphorically), and shares that she once poisoned her father’s ear towards his mistress and their illegitimate child. I’m going to guess that, in this case, she poisoned Ahmed to kill Imran, possibly by manipulating him into thinking that Imran was going to ruin their shady business venture somehow.

I’m also guessing that she manipulated Ahmed into believing that if he did that, then Parveen’s son, Mubeen, would readily sell him the plaza. It’s why she was very adamant that tradition be followed and the plaza goes to him instead of his sister, Anjum, who was much more likely to want to keep it and actually make something of it.

Other characters I somewhat suspected along the way are Sana’s husband, Hamza, because he lost all his (and most of Sana’s) money in Ahmed and Imran’s pyramid scheme, and the owner of the cellphone shop, Deanna, just because she’s acting suspicious and Parveen mentioned the cellphone shop is actually owned by a man. Ultimately, I don’t think either did it. I’m guessing that Deanna was acting suspicious because she’s actually an undercover cop or some such, and Hamza just seems a bit too cowardly and useless to actually take action. Plus, he seems more interested in hanging out with his girlfriend than his kids, so I doubt he’d want Sana to go to jail and leave him with all childcare duties.

The Actual Reveal

Fatima’s son, Siraj, did it. He’s the actual owner of the cellphone store, and only sublet it to Deanna. He was having lots of money issues after his divorce, so he got involved in a car theft ring that used the plaza’s parking lot to move stolen goods. He and Imran argued a lot, and on the night of Imran’s death, their argument turned violent, and Siraj killed Imran in self-defence.

Kausar’s big clue was, during her husband’s death anniversary gathering, she noticed Maleeha looking at Siraj in fear, and that made her realize that Siraj must be involved in the car theft ring.

What mucked things up was that Sana framed herself by switching up the real murder weapon with the dagger in her window display. She also cleaned up the blood trail that proved Imran was stabbed in his office rather than her store. Reason is that she thought her teenage daughter Maleeha was the real killer; she knew Imran was a lecherous man who made Maleeha uncomfortable, and her Find my Phone app showed Maleeha was in the plaza that night.

At least I was right about Deanna being an undercover cop, yippee!

Like I said above, this reveal made me sad. I really liked Fatima as one of Kausar’s BFF sidekicks, and I’m sad that Kausar getting her son arrested likely caused a lasting rupture in their friendship.