East of Hounslow

By turns amusing and harrowing, Rahman’s debut and series launch introduces small-time dope dealer Javid “Jay” Qasim, a British-born Muslim in his late 20s who lives with his mother in the London borough of Hounslow. After vandals attack the mosque where Jay goes every Friday, he joins the effort to strike back at the perpetrators. He winds up getting a beating, and his car, which contains drugs and the money he owes his supplier, Silas Drakos, is stolen. Jay must make restitution or face the consequences. At this low ebb, a stranger recruits him to work for MI5, and he agrees to share what he knows about Drakos’s operation and to infiltrate a cell of radical Muslims. The stakes rise after Jay goes to Pakistan for terrorist training. Rahman does a good job portraying conflicts within the secret services and the evolution of terrorists from regular mosque-goers to radical jihadists. Jay’s wryly witty first-person voice carries the action along to the shocking, cliff-hanger finale. Readers will wonder what’s next for Jay. (July)