‘Vaseem Khan writes with charm and wit, and an eye for detail that transports the reader entirely. I couldn’t love this series more’ CHRIS WHITAKER ‘Historical fiction at its finest’ MAIL ON SUNDAY

From the award-winning author of MIDNIGHT AT MALABAR HOUSE and THE LOST MAN OF BOMBAY comes a brilliant new mystery featuring the inimitable Persis Wadia.

Bombay, 1951. A political rally ends in tragedy when India’s first female police detective, Persis Wadia, kills a lone gunman as he attempts to assassinate the divisive new defence minister, a man calling for war with India’s new post-Independence neighbours.

With the Malabar House team tasked to hunt down the assassin’s co-conspirators – aided by agents from Britain’s MI6 security service – Persis is quickly relegated to the sidelines. But then she is given a second case, the burned body of an unidentified white man found on a Bombay beach. As she pursues both investigations – with and without official sanction – she soon finds herself headed to the country’s capital, New Delhi, a city where ancient and modern India openly clash.

Meanwhile, Persis’s colleague, Scotland Yard criminalist Archie Blackfinch, lies in a hospital fighting for his life as all around him the country tears itself apart in the prelude to war…