This is a very witty, fast-paced story set in Pakistan that opens with the disappearance and presumed death of a visiting American businessman. A local inspector is assigned to find the murderer, and we meet many strange and wonderful characters along the way, from the local television preacher who believes soccer is a big cause of sexual deviancy to the chauffeur who seems more interested in liberating young women politically than sexually to the servant girl who is maybe a bit more than a servant girl. These characters and their stories are the best part about the novel, which turns out to be much more than a mystery - it's a tour through a backwater town and its customs that tells us as much about how men and women treat each other here in the West as in this distant, exotic land.

With a voice funny and biting and wise, MOGHUL BUFFET marks the debut of a wonderful writer.

Moghul Buffet oozes sulfurc acid and laughing gas from every pore. It masquerades as a murder myserty set in Peshawar, but it's really a sardonic commentary on women's and men's roles in society -- both in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan and in the supposedly enlightened West. But this is not the sort of book that will make non-members of NOW groan --it's hilarious even as it points at life with a certain disgust. Along the way, we get to grapple with a murder mystery that is quite secondary to the point of the book but engaging nonetheless. At one point the baffled detective realizes that the scrawled clue the serial killer leaves at each murder scene is a line from a particular song. A couple of murders later, although he's no closer to solving the case he's relieved to see that the killer is getting to the end of the song... But it's the very last sentence of the book that's the real killer.

Cheryl Benard's unconventional debut mystery "Moghul Buffet" is a feast of colorful characters and scenes presented by a witty, worldly narrator with a keen eye for the comedy that results when cultures collide.

Benard's Pakistan is far more than backdrop--it's rich and alive, the laboratory where she explores volatile interactions between urban and rural, male and female, American and Pakistani, corrupters and innocents, ultra-orthodox and liberal.

Northwest Pakistan's fundamentalist Peshawar on the Afghan border is a city where it's commonplace "to be shot, decapitated, stabbed, or otherwise meet a hideous fate." Despite this typical violence, the authorities take notice when an American disappears from his hotel and there's a bloody message left on the scene.

Who did it? Terrorists? A husband outraged that the American was sleeping with his wife? The unlikely group of policemen and amateurs investigating the disappearance and subsequent murders is as chaotically mixed up as the crowded streets of the city they explore, and as entertaining as the delightfully conversational narrator.

"Moghul Buffet" is a probing, wise, and surprising mystery.

Cheryl Benard's second novel, "Turning on the Girls", is going to cause debate wherever it's read. It's part fantasy, part science fiction, part comedy, part novel, part sociology, part . . . well, you get the idea.

Don't let the cover of the book deceive you. I can understand why the publishers chose the image they did -- it specifically relates to the main character's attempt to find "acceptable" feminist erotica and her repeated encounters with women and men who keep reverting to the stereotypes of the past. The message you get from the dust jacket -- all the flowers! -- is not an accurate feel of the book's contents. This is a feminist fantasy with a humorous edge.

This book confused me for quite awhile. Before I even started reading it I thought that Benard had created just another anti-feminist book. But I was wrong. It's obvious that she views certain segments of the feminist camp as a little over the top, perhaps a little too serious, but still respects and honors the feminists of the past and those to come in the future.

Benard's humor hits most the target most of the time. Which brings me to my first warning: If you're uptight about your ideology, about feminism, you're guaranteed to have a least one of your sacred cows sacrificed. Benard leaves no one unscathed, whether it's New Age herbalists or macho guys with too much testosterone.

Benard shows several characters, both men and women, who are disgusted with what they see around them and are just trying to find their way. Lisa finds makeup disgusting and macho men sexist. Her work partner, Justin, just really wants to belong and, most importantly, have someone to love. Benard is going in the right direction, but I don't think she went far enough.

True, this book is supposed to be a politically relevant humorous fantasy. We're not supposed to get hung up on the specifics. So maybe what I'm about to argue would ruin Benard's entire story.

There are two fallacies presented here that made me decide that, while I did enjoy reading "Turning on the Girls", I ultimately do NOT like the book's message.

First of all, Benard presents the notorious and absolutely wrong view of global sisterhood. No where in the book do I remember a character being described in terms of race. Only after I had finished reading did I realize that I had pictured in my mind every single character as white. There's no mention as to how women were able to mend their fences and work together. Even more importantly, where did all the conservative women go? They're not all silly girls who wear long nails and makeup and cow tail to their man. The leap she makes in this regard -- with no explanation as to how all the various feminists worked together nor an explanation as to what happened to all the patriarchal women -- is disturbing because it helps to continue the fallacy that all feminists are alike. They're just not.

Secondly, I'd like to know why Benard didn't include a single male who was egalitarian. With the exception of one man, Lisa's final love interest, not a single male in Benard's book is seen as admirable. Yes, her administrative assistant, Justin, is shown in a positive light overall, but he is still presented as a bit of a wimp and lacking a backbone. She gives us stereotype after stereotype of males who aren't affectionate (and need pets to learn how to be a caretaker) or men who are slobs (tell that to my brother in-law who rants about my sister's constant creation of clutter!). True, this all part of the humor, but it's all easy targets. Going after macho and wimpy men is easy. So I'm surprised that Benard didn't pick on pro-feminist egalitarian men in this novel. But alas, they're nowhere to be seen in the text... I wish that the message of Benard's book was as good as her presentation, but it isn't. "Turning on the Girls" is a great read (be warned that it takes several pages in the beginning for Benard to grab the reader) and will create a lot of debate and discussion, but it's ultimately flawed.

Reading Turning on the Girls felt like reading a mystery novel -- instead of finding a killer, though, you're finding out whether society might be sustainable along lines of feminine values (values that themselves are not uniform among women). Cheryl Benard uses a light touch and a fair amount of wittiness in dramatizing feminist theory in a modern setting, with characters that are quite well enough portrayed to enable suspension of disbelief. The analysis of pornography and romance fiction is enlightening without hitting you over the head -- I especially delighted to find out that Ayn Rand's is basically a romance novel sensibility. You get the feeling that Benard wrote the book as an exploration, not to lead us willy nilly to a foregone theoretical conclusion. Her male characters are very generously characterized, and the best surprise of all was how all the major characters were seen as fair-minded and ethical. To imagine, even in the context of this book, that a considerate and ethical society can be a sustainable one was enough to make my day. Let me finally point out that this book is likely to be in all the feminist bookstores around the world -- or if it's not, it should be -- and that they need our support to stay in business.

Benard's writing style is excellent for her subject. From the beginning she establishes an informal atmosphere as the narrator of the novel. At once she is matter-of-fact and sarcastic, drawing from both 1984 and Story of O to create a world that provokes thought just as much as it might scintillate our baser instincts. The novel begins rather slowly, acclimatizing the reader to the feminist-run version of life. The satire here is breathtaking (from laughter) as Benard pokes fun at everyone, from the ice-cold elite of the feminist regime to the pathetically paternalistic and two-dimensional counterrevolutionaries. (In portraying men in such a light, is Benard even making light of both ultra-feminist/anti-masculinist views and the male-dominated world of Orwell's 1984? The intrigue thickens.) After the orientation, the novel takes off into political intrigue, and then there is just no putting down this book. If that were not enough, the author develops the main character's story into a romancenovelesque subplot. Brava, Benard!

I didn't care for this book at all. I've read a few other books about women in Afghanistan and they've been excellent but this one was dry. This book reminded me of a textbook because it was so dull. I would recommend going to RAWA's website if you want more information.

This book provides less insight than the RAWA website (...), and very little background information. Not only that, but the website features RAWA's activities since Sept 11th - barely mentioned here - including its continuing fight against oppression. Nope, it wasn't the Taliban who instituted "gender apartheid" (though they wholeheartedly embraced it), and things aren't all nice and rosy now they're "gone". Women are still being arrested for walking outside without a chaperone, and being forced to endure humiliating public gynecological exams to prove their chastity; and life goes on just as it did under the Taliban. Things were bad before, bad during, and now they're still bad. Go to the website and get a clear view of what's what in Afghanistan. Now. And see what could happen if you don't actively work to retain your rights.

A very well-written book that provides good factual insights into the historical and operational aspects of RAWA while remaining entertaining to read. Some of the entertaining portions are those where the author's opinions shine through clearly, at times with powerful sarcasm, for instance in her description of the American press's role in perpetuating the mythology surrounding Afghan warriors.
A great, fun, and informative read. I can only recommend it.