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The Shadow

byAjay Chowdhury

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A ritual killing. An ancient curse. What's myth... and what's murder?

After a bruising encounter with a terrorist group, Detective Kamil Rahman has decided to hand in his resignation to the Met and set up a detective agency with his friend Anjoli. But when his boss asks him to go to India to investigate the murder of a British engineer who was found with eighteen arrows stuck in his body, Kamil agrees to take the case, as long as Anjoli can accompany him.

When they arrive in Mumbai, they find someone is on a gruesome killing spree, striking down those connected to the engineer in increasingly macabre ways. Meanwhile, an old friend of Kamil’s gets in touch to beg for his help: he believes his family are cursed, and that he is going to die on his 47th birthday, just like his father and grandfather before him.

As the body count rises, Kamil is torn between solving a very real murder case and protecting his friend from a grisly – if far-fetched – fate. Can he catch a killer and prevent an ancient curse before more people lose their lives?

Ritual killings, a generational curse … This book is a riot. Chowdhury’s depiction of India is visceral and real, blending old and new. A narrative woven tightly, twisting and turning, it leaves you constantly looking behind and sideways, at what you may have missed. A highly enjoyable and hugely entertaining read.

Nilesha Chauvet

About Ajay Chowdhury

Ajay Chowdhury, the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland prize, is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director. His children’s book – Ayesha and the Firefish, was published in 2016 and adapted into a musical which premiered in San Francisco.


The Waiter (Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month), was published in 2021, and 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.The Cook (Guardian Top Crime Books of the Year) was published in May 2022 to excellent reviews and deals with the issue of homelessness. The third book in the series – The Detective (Sunday Times Top Crime Books of the Year) – is about government surveillance and AI. The Spy (Longlisted Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing), the fourth book, sees Kamil infiltrate a terrorist cell. The Shadow (A Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month) is the latest book in the series.
Details
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • ISBN: 9781529967043
  • Length: 384 pages
  • Price: £9.99
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