The Museum Detective by Maha Khan Phillips was published in April 2025. It is being promoted as a series debut.
Our Sleuth: Dr. Gulfsa “Gul” Delani, early 40s, is a curator at Pakistan’s Heritage and History Museum in Karachi. She’s single, smart, and stubbornly fighting to maintain her place in a museum — and much of a country — that would prefer she be married and at home, tending to kin and kitchen.
The Setting: Present-day, mostly set in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and the 12th largest city in the world, with more than 20 million people.
The Premise: Gul is awakened early one hot summer morning by a phone call from police, who’ve made a surprising find during a drug bust — what appears to be the invaluable mummy of a Persian princess. Her job is to determine the authenticity of the unusual discovery. But she’s soon locked in the sights of a shadowy drug kingpin who may know what happened to her beloved young niece who disappeared three years earlier.
My Take: A richly rewarding read. Consider the ingredients: An unusual and interesting locale brought to life through descriptive imagery and tales of history. An independent protagonist who perseveres, with sheer intelligence and hard work, against all odds. A quirky and loyal band of friends and co-workers. A snappy pace, with truly surprising twists and turns. And villains who are there, lurking but undetected, until the satisfying finale. Perhaps best of all, a sweet and satisfying epilogue that, I hope, leads into Gul’s next investigation.
As a writer, it’s interesting to see how the author borrows from a real event — an antiquities scandal involving a fake mummy in Karachi in 2000 — to build her tale. Khan Phillips talks about it in this great interview with writer Sujata Massey, whose books include The Widows of Malabar Hill.
Opening Lines:
Gul was dreaming of Mahnaz when her phone rang.
Her eyes snapped open and she reached for it, her fingers fumbling around the bedside table. “Mahnaz?”
“Is this Gulfsa Delani?” It was a man, his voice cutting in and out, sounding lost on the wind.
“Yes. Who is this?” Gul squinted at her clock. 3:06 a.m.
“My name is Deputy Superintendent Farhan Akthar, from the Jackson Police Station in Keamari. I’m sorry to be calling so late, Madam.”
So this was it, then. Her knuckles were white against the phone. “You’ve found her?”
Heads Up: There are references to difficult topics here, such as the oppression of women and the suffering of poor children in a corrupt country, but none so detailed and graphic that it would shift the book into noir territory. I classify it as traditional mystery.
Etc.: The publisher lists Sue Grafton’s alphabet series as a comparison book or “comp” and, as a longtime Kinsey Millhone fan, I agree. It might seem a long way from a California PI to a Pakistani archaeologist but there’s a shared spirit of fierce female independence.
FemaleSleuths.com 