City of Veils by Zoe Ferraris

In “City of Veils”  author Zoe Ferraris has created a thriller by weaving threads about the plight of women in repressive Saudi Arabia and the claustrophobic social conditions in their country where strict gender segregation and harsh rules limit interaction between the sexes. The authorities enforces its brand of ultra-conservative Islam, where women’s faces are veiled, voices are silenced, and lifestyles are infantilized.

Ms. Ferraris, who herself moved to Saudi Arabia with her now ex-husband and stayed with his extended family of Saudi-Palestinian Bedouins in the 1990s, knows the territory. She shows that repression is not just a woman’s problem; it’s a man’s as well. The book exposes women who must be resourceful to even feel human while simmering inside, and the men who are raised to fear them and place a lid on their own human desires and compassion. City of Veils does  lifts the cultural veils off and looks gender segregation right in the eye.

Set in Jeddah, seemingly one of the more liberal cities of Saudi Arabia, the story begins with the discovery of  a burqa-clad and mutiliated  body of a young woman on a beach by a fisherman. The vicious facial wounds caused by boiling cooking oil make it difficult to determine who the victim is.

Meanwhile American expat Eric Walker goes missing shortly after picking his wife Miriam from the airport. All alone in an alien culture, Miriam struggles to cope while trying to find out the whereabout of her husband.

The dead woman turns out to be Leila Nawar,  a documentary filmmaker who has incurred the ire of many because of her filming and photography. Until her untimely demise, she had lived in the home of her overly protective and very conservative brother, the wealthy owner of a successful store in the city.

Detective Osama Ibrahim is in charge of the investigation into the murder of the woman.   After his assistant, Faiza, is fired for working despite being unmarried (a crime in the country) Osama enlists the help of the new girl, Katya, who works in the forensics lab. With the help of Nayir Sharqi, Katya’s friend who is a Bedouin desert guide, and Miriam, Osama starts searching for answers.

Osama considers himself a modern man, but struggles to deal with his wife’s desire for a career over a large family. Katya has to pretend to be married just to be eligible for her job. Nayir is traditional enough to be morally tortured when he is alone with Katya.

Osama and company soon discover links between the dead woman and the missing American. The plot is engaging but what stands out  is the authors’s knowledgeable and sensitive depiction of Saudi Arabia where religion has given rise to a suffocating and paranoid society.