There is a lot of potential to make this a series - like maybe breaking this book into 3 books for start. I can imagine writing a complete book is nothing short of achievement. And so the one additional star. History China Translation India Japan Hong Kong Biography Short stories Memoir Current affairs Historical fiction Korea Travel-writing South Asia Immigration Geopolitics Southeast Asia Russia WW2 Middle East Culture Central Asia Economics International relations Society Singapore Art Politics Japanese Iran Literary history Philippines Religion Turkey SE Asia Business Photography Colonialism Indonesia Taiwan Crime Chinese Essays Illustrated Islam Recent articles Persis Wadia in ‘Midnight at Malabar House’ is India’s first police detective and pioneering women is definitely a trope I love in my crime fiction! The writing can be a little tedious or perhaps precise is a better word. I find this style sets the mood for the time and place and the era's momentous events. A bit Agatha Christie.

Midnight at Malabar House Review Midnight at Malabar House Review

Persis is confronted with a murder case with many suspects, all with a motive to want Sir James dead. This is a police procedural that shows the strenuous work and tedium of police investigations. Persis displays intuition, intelligence, inductive reasoning, as well as the determination to put the clues together and come up with a plausible theory. The solution is Agatha Christie influenced. She gets all the suspects together in a room and outlines her investigation and conclusions step by step, suggesting which people who are innocent and cleverly identifying the guilty party and the motive.Author Vaseem Khan chooses to create a very Hercule Poirot climactic scene in a church parlor, where, with the assistance of her British not-quite-beau, Persis succeeds in a ruse to gather a remarkably large group of Indian and British suspects hiding secrets that may or may not be relevant. The mystery itself has many similarities to typical classic English stories and even includes the Christie gathering of suspects at the end reveal. Much more is going on however. Vaseem Khan uses the framework to tell a lot about the history of the time and the partition disaster. India in 1950 was still very much at odds with itself, trying to reconcile religious and political differences. The historical tidbit he's given and that's exactly how much of facts he's presented are irrelevant to the plot. Bibi ghar massacre and the info on Haji Ali have no relevance to the plot. it really makes no difference, whether it's included in the story or not. Haji Ali was off limits to women till as late as the 70's. Would they really allow a rich American woman to just walk in without the required dress code and smoke in the premises?? Any religion would take offence at the disrespect shown. Much grittier than the cosy crime novels above, these writers can be relied upon to deliver brilliant police procedurals with a strong female detective. These are contemporary novels: I can highly recommend ‘Evil Things’ by Katja Ivar– her heroine, Inspector Hella Mauzer, is the first woman to be accepted into Helsinki’s Homicide Unit in 1940s Finland. The review is here.

Midnight at Malabar House: Winner of the CWA Historical

This is historical crime fiction at its best – a compelling mix of social insight and complex plotting with a thoroughly engaging heroine. A highly promising new series’ MAIL ON SUNDAY Outstanding. I've always been a fan of Vaseem Khan but this latest offering is something special and something new. Vaseem is totally at the height of his powers with this novel which combines a flair for history, time and place with a genius for mystery. A novel for our times." - Imran Mahmood

Review

Loving Indian locale and fiction as much as I do, this one just barely made the cut. NO Thrity Umigar here. There are a few anachronisms in the book. The first female police officer in the IPS was appointed in 1972. I can live with this time displacement since this book is a work of fiction. A more jarring note was the mention of Persis having a well thumbed copy of the novel Dr Zhivago, which was not published until 1957. This oversight is also a minor quibble but was personally jarring to me. I also wondered at the characterization of Persis.She is a well drawn character who is smart, perceptive, determined and exceedingly outspoken and blunt. At times, she seemed almost James Bond like in conception. I also wondered if she too easily navigated the glass ceiling and gender prejudice that would have been encountered in 1950. I would like to thank Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for an advance copy of Midnight at Malabar House the first novel to feature Inspector Persis Wadda, set in Bombay in 1950. And so, when the phone rings to report the murder of prominent English diplomat Sir James Herriot, the country’s most sensational case falls into her lap.