Author Key Facts
He is the author of two crime series set in India.
The Baby Ganesh Agency series is set in modern Mumbai
The Malabar House historical crime novels is set in 1950s Bombay.
His first book, The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, was a Times bestseller
He was born in England but spent a decade working in India.
In 2021, Midnight at Malabar House won the Crime Writers Association Historical Dagger, the world’s premier award for historical crime fiction.
His latest book is The Dying Day about the theft of one of the world’s great treasures, a 600-year-old copy of Dante’s The Divine Comedy, stored at Bombay’s Asiatic Society.
Interview
When you were a boy, did libraries improve your access to literature?
I grew up in a household where we didn’t have much money. This meant that it wasn’t until I hit the library system that I was finally able to get ahold of books that I wanted to read. It was here that I discovered Terry Pratchett’s wonderful Discworld series, books that inspired me to write a comic SF fantasy aged seventeen and send it off to a couple of agents, fully expecting fame and fortune to beat a path to my door. There was, of course, one small problem with my cunning plan... the book was terrible. Nevertheless, that book set me on my way. Two decades later my first novel was published. The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra is the first in the India-set Baby Ganesh Detective Agency series – featuring a retired Mumbai policeman and his baby elephant sidekick. It became a Times bestseller and a Waterstones paperback of the year, setting the foundation for a series and my career as a novelist.
How did you use libraries during your writing career?
Throughout the long period that I was unpublished, libraries remained my go-to place for inspiration or for a quiet place to write after work. In some instances, libraries have directly influenced my writing. For instance, my latest novel, just out, is The Dying Day, the follow-up to Midnight at Malabar House, which won the Crime Writers Association Historical Dagger 2021. The book is set in 1950 in Bombay, India. In the book a 600-year old copy of Dante’s The Divine Comedy goes missing from Bombay’s Asiatic Society. As Inspector Persis Wadia, India’s first female police detective, investigates, she uncovers a trail of cryptic clues, including riddles written in verse… and then she finds the first body. M. W. Craven, former CWA Gold Dagger-winner calls it: ‘The Da Vinci Code meets post-Independence India.’ The Asiatic Society is a real library in Bombay, and a storehouse of ancient manuscripts. I visited it while living in the city for ten years. That visit stayed with me, so that, years later, I could write The Dying Day and showcase some of that incredible Indian history.
Now that you are a professional writer, do you have a special relationship with your local library?
Before the Covid pandemic I ran a weekly reading and creative writing group at my local library for three years. I discovered how libraries actually work and how hard the people who run them have to fight to preserve what they have; how inventive they have to be (on shoestring budgets), and how passionate they are about their mission.
Could libraries do more to support creative writing by diverse and under-represented communities?
Most libraries I know are already at the centre of their communities. They understand how to connect with and represent diverse groups. Like bookshops, libraries can showcase writers from under-represented communities by prominently displaying and promoting their books or the events they choose to put on. I have been fortunate enough to have spoken at library events up and down the country. I know that my books are keenly borrowed from libraries.
What is the best way to protect libraries when they are under threat?
Talking about the problem only helps so far. To truly help libraries we must engage with them. That means going into them, borrowing books, attending events they host, and generally being active in your commitment.