Sahar Mustafah’s Code of the West is a debut collection to be reckoned with. These stories touch on family, infidelity, alienation, isolation, secrets, fear, love, loss, and violence both in small bursts and manic proportions. Cultural experiences are felt internally through self-reflection and externally through crude assumption, prejudice, and blatant racism. The characters throughout each story present a unique, yet universal, perspective that leaves the reader enchanted and absorbed by the very basis of human nature. This collection starts with its title story, Code of the West, which packs a punch with the investigation of a local woman’s murder. Riyad is lonely in wide-open…