Ajay Chowdhury was the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland crime fiction award. He is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director who was born in India and now lives in London where he builds digital businesses, cooks experimental dishes for his wife and daughters and writes through the night. His children's book, Ayesha and the Firefish, was published in 2016 and adapted into a musical. The Waiter, published in 2021, is the first in his critically-acclaimed crime series about Detective Kamil Rahman, an ex-policeman from Kolkata who has moved to Brick Lane in London. It is being adapted for television by Moonage Pictures. Follow-up The Cook was published in May 2022 to excellent reviews and deals with the issue of homelessness. The third book in the series - The Detective - is about government surveillance and AI. The Spy is the fourth book in the Detective Kamil Rahman series.
A slick, masterfully plotted, white-knuckle ride of a read, packed with action, intrigue and well-drawn characters that get under your skin, and a clever twist in the tale you won’t see coming. Chowdhury’s beautiful prose and exquisite descriptions will sweep you away to Mumbai’s streets and activate all your senses, while the cleverly crafted, hugely suspenseful plotline full of red herrings, twists and turns will keep you guessing right up to the nail-biting denouement. In short, compulsive reading from start to finish. Not to be missed! -- A.A. Chaudhuri You don't have to be a genius to follow the superbly intricate narrative of the new novel from Ajay Chowdhury, but he is brilliant to have written it -- Greg Mosse Revenge is a dish served flaming hot in this twisted tale of betrayal, an inescapable curse, and seemingly impossible murders amongst Mumbai's elite. The Shadow is a gripping new instalment in Ajay Chowdhury's always intriguing Detective Kamil Rahman series -- Paul Waters