The Museum Detective

by Maha Khan Phillips

Genres: General Fiction; Mystery; International Crime & Mystery; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

Inspired by a real-life antiquities scandal in Pakistan, this gripping series debut introduces archaeologist Dr. Gul Delani, whose investigation into the discovery of a mummy gets complicated—and personal—when it collides with her years-long search for a missing family member. Perfect for fans of Sue Grafton and Elsa Hart.

When Dr. Gul Delani receives a call in the middle of the night from the Sindh police, she thinks they may have finally found her niece, Mahnaz—a precocious, politically conscious teenage girl who went missing three years prior. Gul has been racked with grief since Mahnaz’s disappearance and distracts herself through work: a talented curator at the Museum of Heritage and History in Karachi, she is one of the country’s leading experts in archaeology and ancient civilizations, a hard-won position for a woman.

But there is no news of Mahnaz. Instead, Gul is summoned to a narcotics investigation in a remote desert region in western Pakistan. In her wildest dreams, Gul couldn’t have imagined what she’d find there: amid a drug bust gone wrong, there is a mummy—life-size, seemingly authentic, its sarcophagus decorated with symbols from Persepolis, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire. The discovery confounds everyone. It is both too good to be true, and for Gul, too precious to leave in careless or corrupt hands.

Aided by her team of unlikely misfits, Gul will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of it, even as her quest for the truth puts her in the throes of a dangerous conspiracy and threatens to collide with her ongoing search for Mahnaz. A portrait of a city fueled by corruption and a woman relentlessly in pursuit of justice, The Museum Detective is an exciting, gritty new crime thriller that announces a whip-smart and brilliant sleuth and builds to a stunning, emotional conclusion that readers won’t soon forget.

Release date: April 1, 2025

Publisher: Soho Crime

Print pages: 336

Sample

CHAPTER 1

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?”
     “Yes. We weren’t sure whom she belonged to. How long has she been missing?”
     “Three . . . it’s been three years since we’ve had any word. Is she alive?”
     There was a pause. “I cannot imagine why you would ask such a question, Madam.”
     Despite the shock of the call, Gul was not entirely awake yet. She sat up and tried to focus. “Surely it is the only question that matters right now, Deputy Superintendent. You said you found my niece?”
     The man coughed. “My apologies, Madam. I don’t know anything about your niece. That’s not why I’m calling.”
     “No?” She swallowed down the tightness in her throat. What the hell was going on?
     “We made a discovery earlier tonight, during a narcotics investigation. We are in need of your expertise. Can you meet me?”
     Gul swung her legs onto the floor and switched on the bedside lamp. “Deputy Superintendent . . .”
     “Akthar, Madam. DSP Akthar.”
     “DSP Akthar. I think you have made a mistake. I’m not a narcotics expert.”
     “I know that, Madam.”
     “I am a museum curator. I work at the Heritage and History Museum.”
     “Yes.”
     Gul shook her head. Why on earth was this cop calling her? “For the last month I’ve been excavating a Sassanian fort in the Indus Delta, so unless your narcotics are deep in the mangrove swamps, I don’t know how much help I can be.”
     “I am aware of your work.”
     “Then I really don’t understand.” Now that the adrenaline had passed, disappointment took over, leaving Gul feeling raw. The call was not about Mahnaz. Better to receive no news than bad news, but still.
     “It’s a little difficult to explain on the phone,” DSP Akthar said. She could hear him barking orders at someone in the background. “If you could confirm your address, one of my men will escort you here. It’s a long drive out of the city, so please bring everything you might need.”
     Gul pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. Her head was beginning to throb. This whole situation was bizarre. “You said you were posted in Keamari? I live in Bath Island. It’s twenty, twenty-five minutes. Faster if we take the bypass.”
     “I’m not calling from Keamari, Madam. Please bring your things and expect to be here some time. I think you will find it worth the effort. This discovery . . . I believe it is unique.”
     Gul tried to interject, but the policewallah didn’t seem inclined to provide any further details. Bloody man. What were the “things” she was meant to take with her, when she didn’t even know why he was calling? She forced all thoughts of Mahnaz away and tried to focus.
     As she got out of bed, Gul wondered whether she should wake Rahim Raja, director of the museum. She decided against it. If he knew about this—whatever this was—he had chosen to make it her problem. And if he didn’t, he’d find out by morning, and she wouldn’t get barked at for disturbing him without providing any useful information. She closed her eyes for a moment. There was always a logical explanation to everything. This was what Gul Delani believed.
     The police weren’t going to ask for her help without good reason. What had they uncovered? Some stolen artefacts, perhaps? Or maybe they’d stumbled into an ancient site. Though why that would require her presence in the middle of the night, she couldn’t even begin to imagine. But now she was professionally curious, as much as anything else. She gave DSP Akthar her address and hung up.
     Gul jumped into the shower and emerged a few minutes later, blinking shampoo out of her eyes and twisting her curly, rebellious hair into a messy bun. She paused when she got to her cupboard. Her normal excavation attire consisted of a pair of comfortable cotton trousers, a loose-fitting long-sleeved shirt and a distinctly unfashionable vivid orange tie-dyed bandanna she had picked up in Kathmandu sometime in the early 2000s. But today she had no idea where she was going, or who she would be meeting. You never knew with the policewallahs. There could be all types of officialdoms hanging about, just making a nuisance of themselves. She opted for the safest option, an olive shalwar kameez made of khadi and an embroidered white dupatta. Simple enough to work in, yet versatile enough for any occasion, and sufficiently flag matching and patriotic for any government cronies.
     She made herself a cup of tea and located the pair of thick-rimmed plastic glasses she used when doing close-up work at any dig, wondering whether she was meant to pack her excavation tools or not. She decided to pack everything—her picks and trowels, some ropes and markers, her laptop—everything that wasn’t still in her office, left there from the weekend before, along with her well-worn camping gear, which lived there permanently.
     It didn’t take more than a few minutes to get ready. Once awake, Gul was brisk and efficient, so when a jeep with flashing lights pulled into the driveway, she was already downstairs waiting to meet it, wincing slightly at the thought of her neighbours. There were three flats in her building, and the cantankerous Mr. Dada, who had been ensconced in his for over fifty years, hated any kind of disruption. The man was the epitome of a curtain twitcher—though this being Karachi, he had to do it through metal grills rather than lace. Mr. Dada, long widowed and disappointed with all his children, was already up in arms about Gul’s comings and goings “at all hours.” He often tut-tutted about her “excavations”—he said that word with distaste, as though it were akin to prostitution, a trade Mr. Dada made clear he detested.
     It was bad enough suffering fools, Gul thought, but suffering the self-righteous ones really got her goat. Once, when he had railed about rumours of an illicit brothel opening in the neighbourhood, Gul shot him a sweet smile. “Well, it is the oldest profession, you know, so there is plenty for historians and archaeologists to learn. Do you have an address? Perhaps we should go and record their stories.”
     If Mr. Dada had ever worn pearls, he would have clutched them in horror. He had to settle for gripping his taveez instead, shooting her a dirty look and muttering under his breath. Just thinking about the incident made Gul smile.
     The cop opened the jeep door for her, and Gul nodded her thanks. Once inside, Gul texted Mrs. Fernandes to let her know what was going on. She didn’t know how long this would all take, but she had several budget meetings in the morning, plus the museum tour for the orphanage kids and the National Archives people coming in the afternoon. Mrs. Fernandes would make sure that nothing fell through the cracks in Gul’s absence.
     The roads were clear at this time of morning, no need for the cop to turn on his sirens, but he did so anyway. They raced through the city, the streets of Karachi glinting in the semi-darkness. She used the time to push all thoughts of Mahnaz away, but only after offering a brief prayer to the Gods—every single one of them. Amun-Ra. Vishnu. Zeus. Tlaloc. Izanami. Pele. Whatever their culture or creed, she invoked them all. Not Mahnaz. May it never be Mahnaz, not if it was bad news. For a moment there Gul had felt hope, but she was used to swallowing down her disappointment as every lead, every potential “sighting” turned to dust. And now here she was, in a police 4x4, driving into the unknown. What a start to the day. Whatever this artefact was, it better be worth it.
     DSP Akthar was right—the drive was long, far longer than Gul had expected despite the warning. They turned onto the Hub Chowki Road, connected to the Northern Bypass, and she was amazed when, just as the sun inched its way up the horizon, they pulled up at a military checkpoint between the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan. The cop, whom she now knew to be PC Shah, glanced at her from the rearview, and mistook her amazement for something else. “Don’t worry, Madam, I am armed, and a second escort car will join us after the checkpoint. You will be perfectly safe.”
     Gul gave him a half smile, and then turned to look out the window. Balochistan. The supposed badlands. People weren’t inclined to drive out here, not unless they had good reason. She felt the first stirrings of excitement. She had never been allowed to officially excavate in Balochistan, the police and security bureaucracy being too onerous, the kidnappings and conflicts too frequent. And now she had a chance to sit back and marvel as the landscape changed. The sun was rising, hues of orange and lilac were spreading over the vast horizon. Within minutes, the road was engulfed by tall sand plains on either side, etched from prehistoric times, looking like castles with crenulations, or dinosaurs with teeth, so jagged and razor-sharp in their appearance. The landscape was otherworldly, almost Martian.
     After driving for another two and a half hours, PC Shah turned off the N-10 and into the vast openness of the desert—a land that time, and years of conflict, had left forgotten. They passed a trio of small mud volcanoes and Gul longed to get out and linger. But the moment was fleeting, the hard sand giving way to something more porous, to shifting dunes, acacia bushes and then, just over the horizon, the glinting Arabian Sea. She sat up. Unlike the beaches of Karachi, the one they were now driving alongside was pristine. It had no hawkers, no piles of rubbish, no plastic bags floating along the breeze. Up ahead, she could see the landscape changing again. Above the beach were cliffs and rock formations.
     Gul knew they had reached their destination when she saw several police vans and an ambulance ahead, destroying the peace of this otherwise perfect ecosystem. They pulled up behind the vehicles, and she jumped out of the jeep, watching a group of hermit crabs scuttle out of her way. They were still only a few hours’ drive from one of the biggest cities in the world, and yet, this place was as remote as they came.
     PC Shah slammed his own door shut and motioned for Gul to follow him. When she did, hot air hit her like a furnace. It was the thick of summer, but even so, the heat was exceptional, and she was already sticky with sweat despite the sea breeze. They walked towards the other cars. She stopped when she saw two gurneys—their occupants covered with white sheets—being pushed up the beach.
     Gul wiped the trickle of sweat that was already cascading down her cheek. People had died here today. What the hell had happened? Up ahead, she could see that the rock formations were actually narrow caves. And coming out of one of those caves was a paramedic pushing a third gurney, this time with a cop in uniform lying on it. He had vast amounts of blood congealed around his torso, and it was dripping down one arm onto the smooth, terra-cotta sand. She couldn’t tell whether he was alive or dead. Her left foot hit a stone and she stumbled.
     Another policeman came out to greet her, looking harried. “Mrs. Delani?”
     She was used to people making assumptions about her marital status. “It’s Dr. Delani, actually.”
     He nodded. “I am DSP Akthar. Thank you for coming.”
     “What the hell is going on here, Deputy Superintendent?” The policewallah was of average build and would have been impossible to pick out of a line of other men his age and weight, other than the curious birthmark on his forehead. It was almost question-mark shaped, as though the man had been branded as permanently quizzical. Well, he was in the right job for it, she thought. Gul motioned to the caves. “It seems to me like you’ve had quite the night. What is this?”
     “It was a coordinated drug bust between Sindh and Baloch police forces. The Jackson Police Station received a tip-off that heroin was being smuggled out of these caves. There was a gun battle. The perpetrators were all killed, and several of my men are badly injured. We have recovered approximately two hundred and fifty kilos of heroin.”
     “Bloody hell.”
     The man had dark circles under his eyes. He looked exhausted. “Yes. Quite a haul. We found something else as well, and this is why I need your help. We have to move quickly. The tide will come in soon, and the entrance to the cave will become inaccessible until this evening.”
     Gul followed him, trying to take it all in, the policemen swarming around, the bodies, the blood spatter she now saw against the rock wall, the narrow entryway itself, which required her to turn sideways at times, before opening into a vast cavern, full of glinting stalactites. She took a deep breath. “Once again, I feel the need to reiterate, Deputy Superintendent, that I am not a narcotics expert. This is not my world.”
     He nodded. “Yes, but you are an Egyptologist, correct? At least, that’s what I understood from your bio on the museum’s website.”
     “Yes. Yes I am.” What the hell could he possibly want with an Egyptologist?
     “You spent several years in Cairo?”
     “Yes, I completed my doctorate there, and did some years of fieldwork before returning to Karachi. Though, as I’m sure you can appreciate, there’s not much call for Egyptology in Pakistan.”
     He looked grim. “I think perhaps there may be now.” He pointed to a ridge at the very darkest corner of the cavern, raising his torch towards it.
     Her eyes followed the beam of the torchlight. And what she saw took her breath away.