The Terrorists of Irustan, Louise Marley, Ace Books, 1999
For women, life on the planet of Irustan is very restricted. They must remain veiled at all times and have no place in public life. Their only role is as a healer and mendicant. Zahra IbSada, in addition to being wife of the Chief Director of the planet, sees the joy in the women she treats, but she sees plenty of pain, too. Zahra has no choice but to send a wife back to the husband who brutally beat her, until he succeeds in killing her. She sees a prostitute suffering at the hands of her employer.
The twelve-year-old daughter of Zahra's best friend, Kalen, is to be married to a man whose two previous wives died under mysterious circumstances. Kalen begs Zahra for help until she reluctantly agrees to do something medical, and untraceable, about it. Later, a man known to be very rough with prostitutes gets the same treatment.
Zahra's small act of rebellion threatens to change the lives of not just everyone around her, but all the women on the planet.
Marley does a very good job with the characters in this book. It's an interesting, thought-provoking story, and far above average.
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