On the first day of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, there's a mixed crowd in the Scottish Power Studio Theatre to hear Rana Husseini, journalist and human rights activist, talk about her new book Murder in the Name of Honour.

The book details the murder of women in Jordan by their family members, who operate under the notion that 'blood cleanses honour'. Women are killed, Husseini tells us, for indiscretions such as being raped, having affairs, and general disobedience.

The author begins by reading the story of a murder she investigated while she was a social affairs reported for the English-language Jordan Times. A Jordanian woman, Kefiah, was murdered by her brother and uncles after being raped by her brother. Husseini interviewed the men the next day, after walking into their neighbourhood wearing the jeans and trainers she apparently always wears when she investigates a murder. 'In case I have to run away', she tells us.

The murdered woman's male relatives sit casually on a barbershop couch, musing over their reasons for killing their sister and niece. Though many of us are aware of the commonplace nature of this type of violence against women, the reading carries the surreal quality of Husseini, a woman with a confident, reassuring presence, invading the space of several men who seem resolute in their justifications for murdering their young relative.

The author advocates changing the linguistic categories we use to describe misogynistic violence. She cites outdated terms such as 'crimes of passion', and berates the western media for categorising violence against women in Muslim communities as being driven by religion - while similar crimes in western communities are described without alluding to the belief of the participants. She asserts that the occurrence of honour killings is linked to social beliefs, rather than religion, and that community work such as her own lectures and the the school groups set up by the Swedish government following an honour killing in the country are important aspects of social progress.

Husseini strikes me as a woman who takes her work seriously. I'm frankly thrilled with her lack of pretension. She describes her accomplishments without false modesty, and gives the impression of someone who never grows weary of the work she is so clearly dedicated to.