Salman Shami
The Blasphemy Law is set in modern-day Pakistan, a South Asian country astride the geopolitical and ideological fault-line of Asia. With the world’s 13th most powerful military, the 6th largest nuclear arsenal, a population of 207 million, high illiteracy, grinding poverty, and burgeoning support for Islamic fundamentalism, it is a nuclear-charged powder keg waiting to explode. Terrorist groups vie for supremacy, trying to create conditions to topple the corrupt and fractured administration. An Australian engineer, Jane Kelly, has completed installing solar panels to electrify a remote village in Central Punjab. She unwittingly runs afoul of a powerful and ruthless feudal landowner. He uses an emerging terrorist group to frame her for blasphemy, an offence with a mandatory death penalty. Not satisfied with Jane’s incarceration and almost certain execution, her enemies plot to kill her family and her. Jane’s only hope lies with her two loves, Sergei and Razane, but Razane is fighting the demons from her troubled past as a Peshmerga fighter. With the feared Pakistani Intelligence breathing down their necks, they’re running out of time, options, and hope. This unpredictable, fast-paced thriller and erotically charged love story will have you on the edge of your seat and reading late into the night.
