HONOUR :: Caroline Goode

 A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

"The date was 26 January 2006 and my life was just about to change." Caroline Goode found herself acting DCI of Team 16 of London's Metropolitan Police Force and Serious Crime Command by default. Determined to prove herself as a new and only female detective chief inspector, her first case started without even a body or crime scene.

Banaz Mahmod, an Iraqi Kurdish woman, was reported missing by her boyfriend Rahmat. They began seeing each other after Banaz left her arranged marriage. Goode was concerned from the jump. While adults go "missing" for all kinds of reasons, this case had obvious aggravating factors. Banaz's family insisted all was hunky-dory. But Banaz had repeatedly gone to the police for help. She reported being beaten and raped by her husband, that her uncle had threatened to kill her and that her father had attempted to kill her. She even prepared a list of those who wished her harm.

While more is known about honor killings now, the MPF was not aware of them at the time. During the course of the years-long journey for justice for Banaz, Goode learned and began educating others, and eventually received the Queen's Policing Medal for leading the operation and her work raising awareness about honor-based violence. Honour is the story of her quest. Written in Goode's straightforward reporting style, Honour nonetheless reads like great fiction, heavily investing the reader in Banaz's plight. Horrifically, it is not fiction, but the worst of true stories to which witness should be borne.