Kismet: A Thriller
Amina Akhtar, Copyright 2022, 333p, Pub: Thomas and Mercer
The description of this book on Amazon reads, “From Amina Akhtar comes a viciously funny thriller about wellness—the smoothies, the secrets, and the deliciously deadly impulses.
Lifelong New Yorker Ronnie Khan never thought she’d leave Queens. She’s not an ‘aim high, dream big’ person—until she meets socialite wellness guru Marley Dewhurst.
“Marley isn’t just a visionary; she’s a revelation. Seduced by the fever dream of finding her best self, Ronnie makes for the desert mountains of Sedona, Arizona.
“Healing yoga, transcendent hikes, epic juice cleanses…Ronnie consumes her new bougie existence like a fine wine. But is it, really? Or is this whole self-care business a little sour?
“When the glam gurus around town start turning up gruesomely murdered, Ronnie has her answer: all is not well in wellness town. As Marley’s blind ambition veers into madness, Ronnie fears for her life.”
Well, I live on the slopes of a sacred mountain. The types of people in this lightly fictionalized version of Sedona are familiar ones: seekers, New Agers, and, somewhat less flattering, “woos.” Like most groups of people, they run the gamut from exceptionally nice, gifted people to major jerks. Not surprisingly, this attracts exploiters and con artists, and sometimes it’s a bit hard to tell which is which.
As in Akhtar’s amusing book, many are blithe and/or oblivious. One of the more hilarious sequences in the book is when Ronnie arrives in Sedona in tow behind her guru-friend Marley, she is feted as an Indian, innately holy and on an ascended plane. Only the American-born and New York-raised Ronnie isn’t an Indian, hasn’t even visited the place. Her family hails from Pakistan, and she’s a sort of relaxed Muslim. Well, it turns out that Pakistani Muslims don’t rank nearly as high on the personal holiness scale, if at all. So the town decides that Ronnie is an Indian anyway, and avoids the awkwardness of her actual background. I’m guessing that Akhtar herself has encountered this from time to time. I hope nobody tried to get her to wear a dhoti to appear more ascended.
Marley and Ronnie find the first body on a usually well-traveled trail on the outskirts of town, and it turns out to be part of a collection that develops over the succeeding weeks. Akhtar is too smart a writer to make Ronnie a suspect, and instead puts Ronnie under the care and protection of twin sisters who run the town’s biggest crystal shop. Some of the plot development/narration comes from the town’s ravens. Big, black, turkeys with attitude. Yeah, those guys.
Our town doesn’t have any unexplained murders going on, and while we have ravens who are intelligent and mischievous (one learned to perfectly mimic my dog’s bark and used it to drive him nuts) they aren’t plotting against us. At least, I don’t think they are. I am not prepared to die for the caws.
Akhtar clearly has spent time around the ascended masters (ok, mostly mistresses) of the holy town, and knows both them and the locals who interact with them on a daily basis. She brings a keen and often subtle wit to the fore, and it makes for a humorous and satisfying whodunit with a solidly honest plot twist.
Available now at Amazon.