I have been following the exploits of Persis Wadia, India’s first female detective, since she was introduced in the first book in the series, Midnight at Malabar House. Persis is a detective with attitude and an amazing capacity for enduring and recovering from physical attacks while investigating murders. I am beginning to have serious concerns for her health especially since reading the sixth thriller in the series, The Edge of Darkness.
The inspector has been exiled from her home in Bombay to the wild and mountainous Naga Hills district for deliberately ignoring orders. Isolated from her father and her team at Malabar House, apart from her boss who arrived just before her, Persis is also grieving for her forensic scientist colleague/lover, Archie Blackfinch, who is in a coma in a Bombay hospital.
As India prepares for its first post-Independence election, tensions run high especially with the Naga people who seek self-government. For safety Persis is sent to stay in the heavily guarded Victoria Hotel – a colonial-era building which has seen much better days and has few, mostly foreign guests. Her career has nose-dived and Persis is despondent. Then a prominent politician staying in the hotel is brutally murdered in his locked room and Persis must solve the mystery before the political situation explodes…
Well if ever there was a protagonist who exposed herself to the most extreme danger, then Persis is she. How she survives is almost beyond belief. However her powers of detection and deduction, intelligence and sense of justice are never impaired. Vaseem Khan has created a character to be reckoned with. I just fear for her future!
The writing is taut and the narrative races from scene to scene, barely a breath between them. Attention to detail and the interweaving of Indian history into the narrative is second to none. If you love historical crime and a locked room scenario you’ll adore this book, which could be read as a standalone but why would you deprive yourself of the previous books.
The Edge of Darkness by Vaseem Khan is published by Hodder & Stoughton and is available in hardback, £22 from bookshops and £17.19 from Amazon . Paperback due September 2026.
There are very few certainties in life, but one, for me, is opening a new Marnie Rome novel by Sarah Hilary and knowing that I am in for a literary treat.
As usual Sarah Hilary writes with precision and emotional intelligence. No word is superfluous. The characterisation and plotting are faultless. The narrative totally compelling.
In a recent interview with bestselling author Jane Davis (pictured left) for her 
The novel opens with the discovery of a body in Peckham Rye lake – the Pond – by two young boys and I had their names early on: Jace and Ollie. These two local boys from a nearby estate are up to no good and I loved writing their (possibly only) scene!
I was fascinated by Exquisite (Orenda Books) by Sarah Stovell. The novel centres on the affair which develops between Bo Luxton, a best selling author who is married with two children living in the Lake District and Alice Dark a young aspiring writer in a dead end job and relationship in Brighton. They meet at a workshop run by Bo and their friendship develops via emails and then Alice’s visits to the author. The story is brilliantly told from both viewpoints and both characters are unreliable in their narration. Totally absorbing .
In The Cruelty of Lambs (Urbane Publications) Angelena Boden tackles the complicated issue of domestic abuse. Her main characters – Ian and Una – are well drawn and the plot moves along at a cracking pace. The narrative switches from Ian, a cellist who lost his teaching job when wrongly accused of inappropriate behaviour, to Una, a high-flyer who stands to lose the business she built up. Financial ruin faces them but their reactions couldn’t be more different. The supporting characters – friends of the couple who become entangled in the situation – are realistic and their concerns are credible. A thought-provoking and often disturbing read which challenges your preconceptions.
If you like a sexy and mature romantic read, you’ll love Seeking Eden by Beverley Harvey (Urbane Publications). Kate and Neil decide to move out of London after they are burgled and settle into a new, up-market housing estate. But Neil’s job is still in the capital and he spends some of the week staying over at a friend’s flat leaving Kate to her own devices and her new neighbours and Ben – the boyfriend who had walked out on her years ago and now wants to rekindle their relationship… A good contemporary read with well-drawn characters.
One of my favourite recent reads is My Name is Lucy Barton (Penguin), my first foray into Elizabeth Strout’s fiction. I love a first person narrative when it’s told well, and this one is perfection told by Lucy Barton, from her hospital bed, reminiscing about her family and their poverty, which isolated them from the community where they lived. Lucy moved up in the world and became estranged from her parents but it is her mother’s unexpected vigil in the hospital room that helps Lucy reassess her past and move towards a different future. A short but totally absorbing read.
