The weaving of a thriller is an art and not many have mastered it. To find that thrill for a reader in a book that promises such an element is hard to find but Salman Shami’s The Blasphemy Law is an addition to the genre.

The plot is set in modern Pakistan, a country charged with political corruption in name of religion does already create a thrill in itself. An Australian engineer, Jane Kelly, is on a verge of providing electricity in remote villages of central Punjab through installing solar panels. A ruthless landowner uses terrorism to frame her for blasphemy in the Islamic country, an offense that comes with a death penalty. He plots her execution and along with that of her family and close friends. With partial success Jane is now relying her hopes on her two lovers, Sergei and Razane, to save herself and her family. With an exploration of everyone’s demons from past this book is going to have you on the edge of your seat.

This political thriller covers many realistic elements as to what the people of the country endure in their daily lives. With all elements of greed, money, power, and controversial laws, this novel sets a benchmark in its genre for Asian writers to look forward too. The novel starts at the present day lives of current characters and the development of plot takes from there. Salman has a unique way of covering every aspect of developing a story, a learning if you are an aspiring writer and a pleasure for a reader. This is being said, in terms of writing a political thriller and organizing a good amount of characters in a manner that the reader does feel left out at any point.

The evolution of characters is great and as a reader, I could clearly estimate that what a strong background each one of them has. The relationship between the main cast is displayed in a very authentic and an uncompromisable manner with usual twists and turns from the start. If that is not enough, the writing style will hook you up since it is fast-paced and I managed to finish it in less time than I expected after giving a glimpse on the length of the book.

The use of intertwining of multiple protagonists even after the story has a locus in its development is a plus point of this novel. The climax of the novel, I feel might have appeared before than it does in the book but that is just my opinion. I enjoyed it thoroughly and I look forward to Salman’s next novel in this series as I got a sense of the next novel in the end.

4 out of 5!

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