Blood Betrayal by Ausma Zehanat Khan follows Detective Inaya Rahman as she investigates the deaths of two men of color involving police officers.
In Blackwater Falls, Colorado, Harry Cooper is a well-loved veteran police officer. During his normal rounds, he comes across local vandals graffiti a nearby area. Harry follows them until he confronts Duante Reed, a young Black man. Believing Duante has a gun and is refusing to comply with police orders, Harry opens fire. However, no gun is found in Duante’s possession, only a bottle of spray paint. Meanwhile, nearby in Denver, a police drug raid at a club turns deadly when a young Latino teen, Mateo Ruiz, is shot in the back.
Detective Inaya Rahman and her team are brought in to assist with both cases and help ease tensions within the community following the deaths of the two young men. Inaya is especially unsettled because one of the detectives accused in Mateo’s shooting is Kelly Broda, the son of former police officer John Broda, the man who once orchestrated a violent attack against Inaya during her time on the Denver police force. Inaya is shocked when John appears at her door begging for her help in proving his son’s innocence. Will Inaya be able to uncover the truth behind the shootings?
This is the second book in the series. I was able to follow the story without reading the first book, though I definitely felt I was missing some character nuances and relationships. The book did have an interesting twist that I didn’t see coming. However, I just couldn’t fully get into it. The story felt dull and boring for most of the book, and it seemed like nothing really happened until the very end. I think this would work better as an episode of a cop drama series, but as a novel, it ended up feeling pretty lackluster.
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