Sunday, 23 November 2025

Forthcoming books from Headline Publishing

 January 2026

Kate stretches her legs and turns on the TV while James washes away the traces of their morning. She watches in horror at the unfolding news: the hotel they are staying in has been taken under siege. She should be making her way home, working on appearing normal, getting ready to re-enter family life with her loving husband Vic and their two adored children. Instead, she is trapped somewhere she shouldn't be, with a man she definitely doesn't love. How will she begin to tell Vic what she is doing here? If her body is found, will it give up the secret of what she's been up to? She's been so careful hiding the evidence of her affair: write nothing down, leave no trace. Will he begin to understand why? For now, Kate can only hide, take a deep breath, and reflect on the series of choices she's made that have brought her to this moment. What will her marriage and her life look like, if she makes it out? Room 706 is by Ellie Levenson

Anatomy of an Alibi is by Ashley Elston. Everyone at Chantilly's Bar noticed out-of-towner Camille Bayliss. Red lips, designer heels, sipping a Negroni. But that woman wasn't Camille Bayliss. It was Aubrey Price. Camille Bayliss appears to have the picture-perfect life; she's married to hotshot lawyer Ben and is the daughter of a wealthy Louisiana family. Only nothing is as it seems: Camille believes Ben has been hiding dirty secrets for years, but she can't find proof because he tracks her every move. Aubrey Price has been haunted by the terrible night that changed her life a decade ago, and she's convinced Benjamin Bayliss knows something about it. Living in a house full of criminals, Aubrey understands there's more than one way to get to the truth - and she may have found the best way in. Aubrey and Camille hatch a plan. It sounds simple: For twelve hours, Aubrey will take Camille's place. Camille will spy on Ben, and the two women will get the answers they desperately seek. Except the next morning, Ben is found murdered. Both women need an airtight alibi, but only one of them has it. And one false step is all it takes for everything to come undone.

The Nowhere Girls is by Carmel Harrington. On a cold afternoon in December 1995, two young girls are found abandoned on a platform at Pearse Station in Dublin. Thirty years later, investigative journalist Vega is determined to find out what happened to the so-called 'Nowhere Girls'. Where did their mother go? Why did no one come forward to claim them? And where are they now? Searching for answers takes her on a journey with twists she never could have imagined. And one that could put everything else she knows at risk; including her new relationship, her career, and her life as she knows it. 


February 2026

Two teenage girls. One murdered classmate. And a modern-day witch trial that will divide the nation. When 18-year-old Christian Shaw is found dead in an Edinburgh park, the city reels - and the shock only deepens when police charge her best friends, Eliza Lawson and Isobel Smyth, with her murder.  As social media explodes and headlines scream for justice, rumours of bullying spiral into something darker: whispers of rituals, obsession, and a teenage pact gone wrong. Matthew Phillips, a respected heart surgeon, is reluctantly called for jury duty on the case. But as the trial unfolds - and the girls reveal a chilling defence no one saw coming - he begins to question everything: the motives, the evidence, even his own judgement. Who's telling the truth? Who can be trusted?  And what really happened to Christian Shaw? Let the Witch Trial begin . . Witch Trial is by Harriet Tyce.

The Other Child is by Amy Carver. You'd know your son anywhere . . . wouldn't you? Louise has never felt the deep bond with her son, Alfie, that other mothers talk about. Now three, Alfie is volatile, difficult - and Louise can't help but blame herself. Then he makes a new friend, Jacob, and everything changes. Alfie becomes calmer. Happier. Louise should be thrilled - until she meets Jacob's mother and starts noticing strange coincidences: the same hospital, same birth date. . . and Jacob looks eerily like Louise's husband. As doubt spirals into obsession, Louise's suspicions deepen. With Jacob, she feels a bond she's never had with Alfie - an unsettling, impossible connection. And soon, she's forced to confront the unthinkable: What if her child isn't really hers?

March 2026

Whidbey is by T Kira Madden. You want to know who did it, but that was never the question. Or, it was never the right one. Birdie Chang doesn't know much about Whidbey Island, only that it is far. On the ferry, she has an unnerving encounter with a stranger, where she finds herself telling him everything: how she was sexually abused as a child, how the perpetrator now walks free, how the calls and emails from him haven't stopped and she is on the run; how she wants to kill him. The stranger poses a shocking question - if she agrees, he will murder the man who hurt her, with no strings attached. She gives him a name. On the other side of the country, Mary-Beth receives a phone call from the police: her only son has been murdered. What follows is a complex story of three women connected through one man: Birdie, a woman on the run from her past and her abuser; Mary-Beth, the abuser's loving mother; and Linzie, a former reality star turned bestselling memoirist, and another victim of the same man. Whidbey is a gripping whodunnit and a searingly perceptive and astonishingly original novel that asks the crucial question of who has real power over a story: the one who lives it, or the one who tells it? Women are rarely in receipt of what they are owed.

When MJ Hudson, an old work acquaintance, shows up at Dr Kez Lanyon's house in the middle of the night, Kez knows she has no choice but to help. At the prestigious boarding school that MJ's daughter attends, a teacher has been killed and a pupil is missing. And it seems that the same thing happens every few years. Only this time, the school haven't been able to cover things up and MJ's daughter and her group of nice, quiet friends are right at the heart of the scandal. Undercover as the new school therapist, Kez quickly realises there are some seriously powerful, well-connected forces at play. And by continuing to investigate the mystery, perhaps even stepping outside the law to do so, Kez risks putting her own family in serious danger. Because no one wants their secrets aired. And some will go to any length to keep them buried. The Quiet Girls is by Dorothy Koomson.

Romania, 1989: a grey place of mysterious queues, ubiquitous informers and daily news flashes about a man-eating bear that is terrorising the country. Amidst the daily drudge of work, rationing and careful conversation with neighbours, two lives unexpectedly collide when an idealistic police detective, Constantin, is tasked with solving a string of grisly murders, and a rebellious school child, Lia, is unwittingly drawn into her elderly neighbour's seditious plot. Astronaut is by Oana Aristide 

April 2026

Welcome to the Family is by Kate Gray. Holiday with your in-laws can be murder . . . Rosie Riley is nervously excited about meeting the Fraser family. She's head-over-heels for her boyfriend Theo and she hopes that spending a fortnight with the Frasers at their luxury Tuscan villa is a good sign of where their relationship is headed. Fenna Fraser has been part of the family for years. She's always enjoyed the glam annual holiday, but this year she's especially tired with a new baby in tow and she fears her mother-in-law will be more critical than ever. No one is good enough for her sons. It starts as the perfect family holiday. It ends with one of these women arrested for murder. Who is guilty? Who is the victim? And did they deserve it? . . .


When murder strikes at Bathory College's 25-year reunion, the clues to the killing can be found a quarter of a century ago on Graduation Day 2000. As the secrets, tragedies and betrayals from twenty-five years before played out at the reunion, someone from the Class of 2000 was taught a deadly lesson. Twelve witnesses - or are they suspects? - from the Bathory students and staff recount events in the years 2000 and 2025 while the murder trial unfolds before us. But who is the victim? Who is accused of being the killer? And is the right person even on trial? The truth will be uncovered... but only by degrees. A Degree of Truth is by Maz Evans.

The Perfect Accident is by Tess Stimson Could you sacrifice one life to save many? What if that life was your son's?  This year, for the first time, the high school prom will be held on a luxurious cruiser on the lake. Sisters Amy and Iris are excited to be chaperones at the event, seeing their sons all dressed up. It's a proud moment. But, tonight, the boat will sink. And as darkness falls, secrets unravel and the air starts to run out, one of the sisters will be forced to make a split-second decision - to save her own son and let her nephew and twenty-one other teenagers drown. And then, a year later, one of the teenagers will wake up from her coma, ready to tell everyone what really happened at the bottom of the lake. And someone needs to keep her quiet - for good. A pulse-pounding novel of small-town secrets, lies and betrayal - with a twist you won't see coming. 

The Writer and the Traitor: Graham Greene, Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal is by Robert Verkaik. The friendship between Graham Greene and Kim Philby is one of the most mysterious of the twentieth century. Greene, the internationally lauded novelist who wrestled with the themes of faith and betrayal in his work. Philby, the British intelligence-officer-turned-spy for the Soviets, and one of the most reviled men of his era. The two men met as young MI6 officers in war-torn London, working together to defeat the Nazis. But after Greene suddenly resigned just days before D-Day, questions started to arise. He turned back to literature, using his experience in the intelligence services as a backdrop for his novel Our Man in Havana and the screenplay of The Third Man. Lurking within the pages lay suspicions of his friend, with characters and plots echoing Philby's life. Was Philby the real 'third man'? Did Greene's work contain coded messages and warnings of betrayal to M16?

May 2026

As the youngest of three sisters, Charity Wills is used to getting what she wants. When she was a teenager, she fell in love with the dashing bad boy next door and married him. If she wants something beautiful and expensive in a shop, she discreetly puts it in her bag - the Old Bill be damned. If she has enemies that need seeing to, her father-in-law can pull some strings to make the problem go away. So when Charity finds herself suddenly on her own - her beloved Little Danny in prison and no sign of a much-wanted pregnancy on the way - she is at a loss. She wants to start pulling her weight in her influential crime family. But as she works to pull off a plan that will fly under the radar of the law, an old enemy of the Wills family grows ever nearer, determined that Charity will not have her happily ever after . .  Charity is by Linda Calvey

Serpent's Tongue is by Barbara Nadel. As the youngest of three sisters, Charity Wills is used to getting what she wants. When she was a teenager, she fell in love with the dashing bad boy next door and married him. If she wants something beautiful and expensive in a shop, she discreetly puts it in her bag - the Old Bill be damned. If she has enemies that need seeing to, her father-in-law can pull some strings to make the problem go away. So when Charity finds herself suddenly on her own - her beloved Little Danny in prison and no sign of a much-wanted pregnancy on the way - she is at a loss. She wants to start pulling her weight in her influential crime family. But as she works to pull off a plan that will fly under the radar of the law, an old enemy of the Wills family grows ever nearer, determined that Charity will not have her happily ever after . . 

June

The Midnight Guests is by Alex Hay. 1923. Diana Gold, owner and impresario, throws open the doors to the most opulent new hotel in London. As the champagne flows and the chandeliers shimmer, millionaires and gamblers rub shoulders with film stars and royalty. Everyone who's anyone is here. Everyone, that is, except two guests due at midnight. Powerful and dangerous, they've dragged Diana from the gutter and taught her all she knows. Her fate rests in their hands. If everything goes right, a whole new life awaits. One mistake will cost her everything. For this is much more than a hotel - it's the heart of Diana's intricate masterplan. Over twenty-four fateful hours, her guests will learn why they're really here. And Diana will take perfect care of them - unless they take care of her first. But when a body is found in the depths of the hotel, Diana's lavish opening night suddenly spirals out of control. . .

Every traitor was once trusted. Jamie Tulloch and Sam Li never intended to be spies. Jamie, a former exec at a tech company, found himself caught up in a mission and discovered a taste for the secret world while Sam, a burnt-out corporate lawyer, was unexpectedly talent spotted by MI5. When both are plunged into covert training, they find themselves pitted against each other for their final evaluation - Exercise Red Poacher. Every year, MI6 trainees must evade capture, infiltrate sensitive sites and report back with the right intel, while their peers at MI5 try to stop them. But things take a sinister turn when they witness the apparent murder of one of their fellow recruits. Is it all part of the exercise? Or is someone trying to weaponise this game of spies into something far more deadly? Solitary Agents is by David Goodman.



Saturday, 22 November 2025

Books to Look forward to from Orion Publishing


January 2026

The Bone Garden is by Simon Beckett. Buried in the shadows and roots of the forest is a deadly secret that was never meant to come out . . . Driving through the mountains in a fierce winter storm, David Hunter is forced to seek shelter at a remote village. But a one-night stop-over at the dilapidated Hillside House becomes deadly after a gruesome discovery in the depths of the surrounding forest. With communications down and the only road washed out by the storm, Hunter is unsure who - if anyone - he can trust. And as long-buried secrets of a feud amongst the locals begin to emerge, he knows that whatever dark past the isolated community might be hiding, there's no one he can call on for help. This time he's on his own.

A man with a deadly past marries into the perfect, respectable family. A woman buried. A woman broken. A woman crashed. A woman burned. And the man who knew them all. Love at first sight, a whirlwind Vegas wedding, a fairy-tale romance. For seventy-nine days, Tavish Advani has been the happiest man in the world-until his new life turns to ash, his wealthy in-laws' house going up in a fiery explosion. His badly injured wife lies in a coma, her family all but annihilated. Tavish thought he left the sins of his Los Angeles life behind, but it's not so easy to leave behind an investigation into the deaths of several high-profile women-all of whom he professed to love. Tragedy and death follow him no matter where he goes . . . but this time, he knows he's innocent. Desperately trying to clear his name as the authorities zero in, he begins his own investigation into the fire-and learns that his wife's picture-perfect family may have been nothing but a meticulously constructed mirage. The truth is much darker than anything Tavish could've imagined . Such a Perfect Family is by Nalini Singh.

February 2026

Mrs Pearcey is by Lottie Moggach. Camden, 1890. London is a city of gaslight, gossip and grisly headlines. Hannah Teale is a bright young woman newly engaged to Cosmo, a budding Fleet Street reporter. Her interest in journalism is largely confined to the advice and short stories in her beloved Girl's Own Paper, but when news breaks of a local woman arrested for a brutal double murder - a woman named Mary Pearcey - Hannah is struck by a chilling realisation. She's seen that face before. As the streets of Camden fill with tabloid journalists jostling for a scoop and gawpers hungry for details, Hannah becomes convinced that her encounter with Mrs Pearcey holds the key to the story behind the headlines. In the guise of preparing for her wedding, Hannah embarks on her own investigation. Startling revelations bring her closer to the real Mary Pearcey - but the deeper she digs, the more the neat edges of her own world begin to fray. With a trial in full swing, what began as a morbid fascination now feels urgent and personal. The woman bound for the gallows may not be as guilty as the press have branded her - but can Hannah uncover the truth before it's too late? And even if she does, will anyone believe her? Riveting and immersive, Mrs Pearcey is a powerful reimagining of a true crime story that scandalised Victorian society and a moving exploration of the secrets we keep and the stories we tell.

March 2026


Killing Me Softly is by Christie Watson. Unexpected deaths and untoward incidents are becoming alarmingly frequent at City Emergency Department. A&E Senior Sister, Aoife, begins to question whether her new nurses are incompetent - or worse. Earnest recruit Eden cares deeply for her patients and carries the Code of Conduct around in her pocket, reporting everyone whose views don't align with hers. But despite her self-righteousness, Eden keeps making mistakes. Is she dangerous? It is Sophie who worries Aoife the most. Acerbic, over-confident and seemingly lacking in empathy, how Sophie ever became a nurse is beyond her. When Sophie begins an affair with Aoife's best friend, Michael, a man twenty-five years her senior, tensions escalate further, threatening to eclipse the fact that lives are at stake. Aoife is the nurse we'd all want. Compassionate to the core. She's the nicest, kindest nurse in the world. Until she is tested to the limit . . . Fearless, fast-paced and darkly funny, Killing Me Softly is a jaw-dropping novel about the hidden extremes of nursing and three complex women who hold the lives of their patients - and each other - in their hands.

The House of Falling Light by R J Ellory. Fifteen-year-old Eleanor’s life of quiet rural drudgery collapses when her parents’ marriage explodes into violence. Eleanor escapes across the Texas plains, but when she crosses paths with a escaped murderer, her dream of a fresh start crumbles, as she’s mistaken for his accomplice. On the run across desolate towns and anonymous cities, Eleanor will do whatever it takes to survive – pursued throughout by a Texas ranger, desperate to understand the truth behind her wild flight across the country. 

The Lancashire town of Burnley is a typical British melting pot, where drugs, violence and human trafficking rub shoulders with grand houses and rolling moors . . . and now two people have been found dead. DI Jane Hacker is back in town, caring for her sick mother, heading up a crime unit that doesn’t trust her instincts. It’s time Jane finally faces up to the truth of the town’s past and present to track down a sadistic killer, before it is too late. The Last Rites (Her Last Breath) is by M J Arlidge and Alex Khan

July 2026

What does it cost to live free? On a warm May night, a woman is found dead at the wheel of her car on a Birmingham back street, a single knife wound to her throat. To DCI Robin Lyons, called away from a date with her new lover, the clinical murder initially suggests organized crime, especially when she learns that Heather Pethick lived on a farm with access to secluded coves on the Cornish coastline. Was she a courier, delivering drugs or even people to a contact in the city? The more Robin learns, though, the less likely that seems. Heather's distraught husband is adamant she'd never jeopardize the life the two of them had built with their six-year-old son, Mikey, especially as her own childhood had been precarious. But then another woman goes missing - a woman with whom Heather had been seen in fraught conversation just hours before she died. Uncovering the truth will take Robin down a rabbit hole into a world where nothing is what it seems and accountability is shrugged off as lightly as a summer jacket. She and her team will be forced to consider what it really means to live freely - and what that might cost other people. For one team member, it will cost their life. This currently unnamed Lucie Whitehouse novel is due to be published in July.




Friday, 21 November 2025

From Hunted. to The Burning Grounds with Abir Mukherjee

This down to earth, incredibly funny and all-encompassing interview took place over the sunny weekend of St Hilda's Crime and Mystery Weekend between 8th to 10th August 2025.

This interview with Abir Mukherjee not only covers the writing of his best-selling and award-winning novel Hunted, but his return to his award-winning Wyndham and Banerjee series, his research, background to the new book, authors of colour and other bits of information that I managed to persuade him to talk about.

Ayo: Can I just start by saying congratulations. 

Abir: Why thank you. Can I say thank you for everything. It cost a lot of money to bribe you, and it was money well spent.

Ayo: That is so funny. Okay, let’s be a bit serious. 2025 has been an interesting year. 

Abir: It has been an interesting year from a political point of view. It has been a great year if you close your mind to all the world.

Ayo: I'm talking more about you and your books. 

Abir: Ah well explain?

Ayo: Well British Book Award, Theakston's need I say more?

Abir: I know well. It has been mental.

Ayo: Did you actually expect to win the Theakston's

Abir: I didn't expect to win either to be quite honest with you. As you know I didn't expect to win the Theakston's as I turned up in my shorts.

Ayo: Well yes, I heard about that.

Abir: I was going to get changed but then I saw everyone looking so fancy I thought don't I understand someone obviously knows that they have won but they had not told me and so I didn't bother to change. So I stayed in my shorts and then I felt like a complete idiot.

Ayo: You are never a complete idiot. Oh dear.

Abir: Partially then.

Ayo: When I think back to when you first started writing I thought bloody hell this is good. I was just so happy.

Abir: Well, you didn't give me the prize that year did you. Nine years I had to wait.

Ayo: Can I just say this is my first year of judging the main prize.

Abir: Okay then, I forgive you then. That's all right. Why is this your first year. Someone needs to answer for this. You should have been a judge years ago.

Ayo: I have no idea. I have to say that I was quite pleased that they asked me.

Abir: Quite right

Ayo: You do know that I generally tend to be low key

Abir: As one of the wise great heads of crime fiction not just nationally but internationally. Everyone where I turn up you are Guest of Honour

Ayo: Now you are making me blush if you could see me doing so. I am not everywhere. Anyway, this is not about me it is about you. As much as this is about the new book, It would be very remiss if we don't start off by talking about Hunted. What a year it has been with Hunted.

Abir: Yes, please do as I can’t remember the new book.

Ayo: (Laughing) You can’t remember the new book? 

Abir: (Laughing) – No, I wrote it a year ago. Actually, yes, I can but I wrote it a year ago - I’m writing another one. This is the problem.

Ayo: Let’s talk about Hunted. What made you decide to write Hunted which is your first contemporary novel and standalone.

Abir: Well, there were a couple of things I had written five Wyndham and Banerjee novels and that had taken the best part of a decade. Seven or eight years I had been writing, and I had these two voices in Sam Wyndham and Surendranath Banerjee in my head. Three voices actually those two and my wife’s and I wanted a change. I wanted firstly to write something different. I was getting a bit stale and secondly, I wanted to see if I could write something that was different because historical crime fiction is great, but it is a certain style of novel. Let’s call it middle brow. That’s something somebody once called it. I am not sure that I like that term.

Ayo: No, I think that I have to disagree with whoever said that it’s middle brow.

Abir: It is a certain book, a certain pace, a certain amount of research goes into it, a certain amount of history comes in. Whereas I had never written a thriller and I wanted to write a thriller. It just turns out that I wasn’t particularly good at it to start with because it took three years. The first two attempts were awful. The first one was terrible. I’m surprised none of my editors jumped off a bridge it was so bad.

Ayo: So how did you feel about moving not solely to the 21st Century but to North America when you wrote Hunted?

Abir: As you know I write about things that make me unhappy and angry and the thing is when I started writing this what we see now and is probably worse now is the rise of extremism, the rise of populism, the rise of intolerance. All of these things and I thought well the last book I had written Shadows of Men dealt with some of those issues, but it was allegorical and I thought that it was getting really quite bad and that I should tackle it head on. And so, it made sense to look at them. If we are talking about the rise of the Right, talking about the rise populism then America seems to be the fulcrum of that. It is happening everywhere but that is what we see the most of.

Ayo: You think it has become more prominent?

Abir: Err, yes. Well, it certainly matters more. Let’s say if it happened in Hungary which it is happening in Hungary it doesn’t really affect most of the outside world. When it happens in America, as they say when America sneezes, we all catch a cold.

Ayo: Was the transition difficult and if so, what was the most difficult part of it?

Abir: It was bloody terrible! It was really difficult as I didn’t know how to write a thriller, so I wrote 15,000 words of this book and it was written in the style of how I wanted to write it and then I got a book deal off the back of those 15,000 words. For the first time I had a big publisher in America, and I got a bit scared, and I thought I don’t know what I am doing. I need to write a thriller; I need to write a different sort of book and so I wrote the next 80,000 words in a very different style which in hindsight was a terrible mistake because they all read it and went 'this is not what we paid for'. And they were right and the stated that if they wanted a book in this style they would have commissioned a book in this style. Why don’t you write the book you want to write.

The first time was very plot heavy and so I went back and rewrote it in the style I would write my other books but that wasn’t right either because that was historical fiction. The first time too much happened and the second time nothing happened. And so, it was about getting that balance. What I did was that I went away and read a lot of thrillers by people I liked.

Ayo: For example?

Abir: Steve Cavanagh who I think is brilliant. Reading a Steve Cavanagh book is like being hit in the face with a frying pan every couple of chapters.

Ayo: I am fairly certain I saw somebody mention that recently.

Abir: It was probably me. I have been saying that for the last couple of years. I learnt how to be braver and essentially to dial all the action up to eleven. The issue I had was marrying that action with the character development and arcs and the quiet messages. That was a very tough part and then I have never written from three points of view before, and they were all vastly different points of view. Whereas Sam and Suren both of them are the voices in my head, they are my personality, I can get them. These were different characters from me. A white American guy 20-year-old, an American woman of a certain age and origin and a Bangladeshi Muslim man and while I could relate to bits of their character, these were quite different to the sorts of things that I had written before. Just getting the voice of each character took a long time in each draft. By draft three we had the story, the action and the plot sorted but in terms of getting the characters right it took another three to four drafts. It took an exceptionally long time.

Ayo: How many drafts do you normally do of your books?

Abir: It varies. I think by the end of the second draft we will have the structure, then there will be three smaller and smaller drafts including a copy edit. But you know if you say it takes me nine to twelve months to write a first draft, probably three to four months to do the second draft and then the subsequent drafts get shorter and shorter. This one took much longer. I mean the first three drafts took about in total over two years, getting close to two and a half years. All in that book took a long time.

Ayo: Were you panicking at any stage about this?

Abir: I wasn’t panicking precisely because failure is my natural state (laughing). I know how to deal with things going wrong. I have no idea how to deal with things going right. I don’t trust myself when things go right. I feel I jink it. So, when things were going wrong, I was really happy because I knew – hear we go again this is my natural state. Also, I never really knew how bad it was until I looked back. This is the wonderful thing about editors they never really tell you just how bad you are until you have fixed it yourself. I didn’t panic; I got lucky in that respect.

Ayo: How soon after you finished writing Hunted did you start writing The Burning Ground.

Abir: Hunted had been going on for so long I had to start it anyway as I was getting tired. I must have handed in the fourth draft and while I was waiting for the fourth draft of Hunted to be pulled apart, I started researching and I started writing the new book. To be fair the gem of that comes much earlier. It probably goes back to 2018 when I was in Calcutta doing a walking tour and we were taken to the house of India’s first female photographer. That was interesting to me and the reason that she made such a name for herself was because in those days a lot of men if they were Muslim or even Hindu men did not like their women being photographed or seen by other men so she had this natural constituency and she could go into everyone’s houses and everyone loves a photo. So, she did pretty well.

Ayo: She found her niche.

Abir: Yes, and I thought that’s an interesting story I have got to build that into a book. That was many years ago – 2017/18. I was actually in India with Val McDermid and Graeme McCrae Burnett at that point. We were on this walking tour together and that’s when that happened and then there is another part of this story when I was researching that I came across another story which I can’t tell you about because it is in this book but if I tell you, it’s a spoiler.

Ayo: No spoilers please. 

Abir: I started the research by the fourth draft of Hunted and started writing probably by the time the fifth draft was in.

Ayo: Describe the new book in five words?

Abir: Oh gosh that’s tough. I can’t describe anything in five words. I can’t even describe my breakfast in five words. Um --- Rich people in Calcutta with secrets.

Ayo: How important is history to you in relation to the Wyndham and Banerjee books?

Abir:  I love history, I have always been a bit of a history nerd – I’ve been many sorts of nerds. My son seems to be an even bigger history nerd than I am. He has a little friend that lives across the road but when he switches on Horrible Histories she goes home. I think that it must be genetic. History is important because if we don’t know our history and, in this country, we certainly do not know our history, we are doomed to make the same mistakes. It sounds like a cliché, but it is not. We can only make decisions from an informed position and if we are not informed, we do stupid things again and again.

Ayo: Do you think that your connection with India has changed since you wrote your first Wyndham and Banerjee book?

Abir: Has it changed, I suppose it has matured a bit more. I understand India more. I get treated slightly differently as well.

Ayo: How?

Abir: The books are read there and that’s all really nice.

Ayo: Really, that’s very nice. Does it help when you get to India.

Abir: I don’t know if it helps. But if you go to Calcutta, and Calcutta is a weird place where writing and the arts are essentially fetishised everywhere. You tell people you are a writer they will do anything for you it is amazing. It is really cool in that respect. You go to the airport in Calcutta, you land, you go into the terminal, you look up and you will see writing all over the ceiling and that is Rabindranath Tagore the first non-white winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature who came from Calcutta. That’s his handwriting from the Bengali edition of the book Gitanjali (Song Offerings) which won. The whole city is literature, poetry, and art creativity, so it helps there.

Ayo: I know that you have mentioned the first female photographer (who was Homai Vyarawalla) but what else inspired the story because you talk about the dead being laid to rest in the burning ghats of Calcutta. What are the burning ghats of Calcutta. I have during my research got some vague idea but let’s talk about it from the point of view that some people may not know anything about it.

Abir: Hindu’s believe in reincarnation and reincarnation is effected by the burning of the shell which is the corporeal body to free the soul and this tends to happen around auspicious places if possible and the most auspicious and holy place the Ganges and the part of the Ganges that goes through Calcutta is called the Hooghly but is essentially still the Ganges and there is this point in Calcutta, in fact there are several the main one is Manikarnika Ghat where these bodies are cremated and it is called the burning ground or the burning ghats right near the river. The cremation can only be done, I mean the priests can conduct the prayers but the burning, the carrying and the preparation of the bodies can only be done by a subset of an untouchable cast called the ‘Doms.’  It is a really bizarre situation. Outside of the burning grounds these guys are nobody but inside they are literarily kings to the extent that in Varanasi, which is not in Calcutta they say that the head of that community is a millionaire just because of the money that they get for this monopoly on essentially carting the dead around. So, I heard that story and thought that’s pretty cool I have got to put that in as well.

Ayo: Did you go to India to do research about this and if you did, did you go to Varanasi?

Abir: No, I did my research in the sense that my father passed away on holiday some time ago and he was from Calcutta, and he spent half his life there and half his life here. He and my mother were on holiday, and he fell ill and passed away, and, in that sense, it was nice as he went in the place where he was from and we gave him proper funeral rites, we scattered his ashes on the river. If it were here, it would have been in a crematorium, and he would be sitting in a jug above my mantel piece. So, in that sense we went through the whole thing. These days it is almost industrialised there are so many people, and they have incinerators as opposed to funeral pyres but there are certain things that remain. I have had this discussion with Craig Robertson. There is a part of the body that apparently doesn’t burn at the same temperature as the other parts of the body. He says that this isn’t true, but I have seen it, and I don’t know if it is true, but it is the navel, the inside of the umbilical cord which stays inside you. So, once they give you the ashes, they also present you with the navel which you then pack in earth or mud and return to the Ganges separately. I did not put it in this book, but I did put it in the second book. So, I have been fascinated by this whole procedure of reincarnation. Have you ever been somewhere, where you have gone into a building or a place and it’s not just déjà vu but you have this really strong sense that you have been there before.

Ayo: Oh God, yes. 

Abir: That happened to me once in India. I went to this house, and I have never been there before in my life, but I seemed to know the layout, and I had this really strong feeling that I had been there.

Ayo: That is rather spooky you do realise that!

Abir: Yes, it is really spooky.

Ayo: Let’s talk about Indian cinema.

Abir: Okay we can do that, or I can tell you about the time my dad saw a ghost! But we can talk about Indian cinema if you want.

Ayo: As much as I would like to hear about you dad and ghosts, I think we should talk about Indian cinema. Indian cinema is a big part of this book as well. How did you go about doing your research. What I want to know is did you end up sitting down watching loads of Indian films and was some of it nostalgic.

Abir: God no. I did not for this because the period for this is still the silent movie period and there were very few films. The Indian film industry did exist, and it existed in Calcutta at that point in time. I watched YouTube clips but not much has survived from that because that was the very early days of Indian cinema. But Indian cinema is funny because we think of it all as Bollywood.

Ayo: But don’t you think that this is partly because what we grew up seeing?

Abir: You did – or people did. But Calcutta has its own, very different heritage of cinema. So, we have Satyajit Ray who was given an Oscar for his lifetime work The Apu Trilogy. He was the first Indian to receive it. We have a very different culture of film making which is skewed towards the artistic. They are generally four hours long, you come out with a headache without any clue what happened, but you are very happy it is an art film, and you feel intellectually good. Again, it goes back to this idea that Calcutta and Bengali’s thinking of themselves as intellectuals. Our film industry is different; it has its roots in intellectual fiction rather than commercial fiction.

Ayo: When were you doing all your research was there anything that you found that you realised that if you put this in the book nobody would be believe you?

Abir: Well in this book I did not find anything to that extent other that then crucial premise of the book. The whole twist is around something that is real, but I can’t really speak about that, but it will go in the author’s note at the back. And that was really the trigger for the whole book. Finding out this fact and that is where the book comes from and that is what the whole book hinges on. I didn’t believe it, and I wouldn’t have believed it if it wasn’t true. I can’t say anything more than that.

Ayo: What do you think readers would make of the relationship between Wyndham and Banerjee now?

Abir: Well, you know what it’s changing isn’t it. It is very different from what it was five /six books ago. Five/six books ago Suren was in awe of this detective who had just come from Britain, ex-Scotland Yard. Now they have spent a couple of years apart. We should point out this book is set in 1926, the last book was set in 1923 at the end of which Suren left India Ostensibly for six months, but because it took me so long to write a hunted he has been away for three years. They are ageing in real time.

Because of that Sam has been alone for three years. He is pretty grumpy about it. So, the relationship is quite difficult. At least to start with it is quite abrasive. I don't think either of them really forgives the other. Sam because Sam is Sam and Suren because he is a bit sort of traumatised by the whole experience of having to leave India because of the way he was framed at the end of the last book.

Ayo: What generally therefore are your thoughts on the portrayal of friendships and relationships in novels particularly yours.

Abir: I think they are very important. And why do I have that relationship? It is because these relationships are across cultures, across races and actually existed. We tend to draw history in broad brushes, them and us. Whereas so much of the time the really interesting details are in the individual relationships and we see that they don't meet their stereotypes and there is another of those in the books. It is the story of Jatindra and Nellie Sengupta. Jatindra was this Bengali guy whose father sent him off to Cambridge at the age of 17 to study law and he fell in love with this woman whom I think was called Ellie. Anyway, she changed it to Nellie. This white girl called Nellie and Jatindra fell in love, and he wrote to his parents saying I've met this girl we are falling in love and I'm going to marry her, and she told her parents who were white and they were fine with it. His dad wrote a letter to her parents saying this is terrible' the cultures are too different, and Jatindra was ordered to get on a boat back to India. So, he cancelled everything got on the boat but got as far as the Suez as he realised, he had made a mistake. He sailed all the way back, got Nellie went back, got married on the boat and she arrived in Bengal dressed in a Sari. Fast forward the story. Jatindra is a freedom fighter and becomes the Mayor of Calcutta. Jatindra is then arrested and dies. Nellie then becomes a member of the Indian National Congress party as she also becomes the first non-Indian female head of the party. She becomes a bigger name in the freedom struggle than he does. So, this white woman whose in-laws didn't want her coming across is revered as this hero of the independence movement. She had stamps produced in her honour.

Ayo: Okay we are going to skip back a bit. Let's talk about when I think back to 2016 when you were one of the debut authors for the new blood panel at Harrogate. So much has changed hasn't it.

Abir: My hair didn't have specks of grey, and I didn't have a beard.

Ayo: No, you didn't. You were fresh faced. How has this change affected you?

Abir: It has changed my life. I mean I was an accountant for 20 years and then all of a sudden, I have all this good luck.  I had this book published and it Starts getting all this great praise and it gets onto this panel just to be the best debuts which was a huge surprise because I had never written anything and that turbocharged everything. The week before that Vaseem and I were published in the same year, and we did an event together. We have been doing events together for 8 to 9 years now.

Ayo: You are such a great double act.

Abir: It's ridiculous. I love him (laughing). We talked to an audience of four people. One of which was his wife, the other his publicist and also my publicist and just someone random who accidentally walked in off the street and then the next week I'm at Harrogate talking to 700 people or whatever it is.  So, it did, it changed and that was the beginning and now (touch wood) I'm writing full time. I'm doing the job I love. I would use the phrase George Orwell uses in 1984 – 'It's like swimming against the tide your whole life and then suddenly turning around and going with it'. It just feels right.

Ayo: Well – is there anything you would change since you started writing?

Abir: (Laughing) – I would sell more books, and I would like Chris Whittaker’s sales.

Ayo: You were saying when you started you did this literarily on a whim when you entered the competition.

Abir: I would have done it earlier if I had known. I would have done it ten years earlier. In hindsight I would have said to myself be brave and do it earlier.

Ayo: Are we going to see another standalone novel from you?

Abir: I am just finishing the first draft. I would be writing it now if I were not talking to you. I have got to hand it in on Tuesday (12th August 2025)

Ayo: Really? Oh my God.

Abir: Yeah, first draft. I'm loving it. It is the best thing I have written. (Laughing)

Ayo: Can you give us a bit of a hint.

Abir: I can tell you all about it as I'm writing it now. So, think, a George Clooney type American Hollywood star. Slightly over the hill, marries India's Bollywood sweetheart. She is the biggest actress in India, and they move to Mumbai, and they are staying in billionaire's row in one of these massive private houses and she is murdered. He is the prime suspect. And what do you do when suddenly 1.4 billion people suddenly hate you?

Ayo: Go and hibernate?

Abir: Well, you have to hide. So that's what this book is about.

Ayo: One of the things that I have realised is that there has been an increase in books specifically referring to authors of colour. Why do you think that this is the case, and I am sure that you will agree with me that not only is it long overdue but that we could still do more?

Abir: Yeah – Why is it happening? It's market forces. I think it's market forces. If you go back ten years ago, Vaseem and I came around at a time when there were very few non white, or certainly not British Asian writes writing crime fiction. I can't remember any. There were very few British Asians writing anything other than literary fiction. There was a feeling I think that books written by British Asians just wouldn't sell. Things like Londonstani which is Gautam Malkani's book. It is a great book, over hyped and when it did not sell to the degree that publishers wanted it seemed to put a damper on the market. Vaseem and I were quite lucky that we came along in the same year, and we were both commercially successful, to the extent that we are viable as writers. It showed that these sorts of books – that there was and is an appetite for them. Something that was wider. Times were changing, tastes were changing and because we did that and we were lucky to be there then next year there were more people and more people. It's still incredibly difficult. I mean if you are going into supermarkets and if you are lucky, you will find one book that is by a non-white writer on the shelves. It is changing though.

Ayo: I did a paper for Martin Edwards at the Gladstone Library last year in June 2024 and my paper was called from Black Mask to the Modern Day; The Evolution of the Black Crime Writer, but when I was doing the research for it I got so angry because on the one hand we have the US who are much better than we are and then there is the UK and the major gap just made me think that we could be much better than this.

Abir: We should be better than this but on top of that there is the gap between us and the rest of the world as well. Anger is a funny thing, we should be angry, but it is how we channel this anger.  Too often in the past we have channelled that anger by saying to the industry -'You should be doing this, you should be doing that and that you should be doing the next thing. The problem with that is that you can't guilt people. What we have got here is an industry that works in a market economy. So, the only way you change things is by showing them there is a profitable route and make it win, win. It happens every time. Even in the last couple of weeks there has been a retrenchment in terms of publishers and booksellers selling non-white books and publishing non-white books. And we had the same thing with a literary agency a few months ago and I think the problem there is, is that you can’t guilt people into doing it you have to make it work economically and that’s a different approach. 

Ayo: One does hear so much about people complaining and saying that there are not enough authors of colour.

Abir: You have to buy the books.

Ayo: Yes – One you have to buy the books and two, it is a business and sometimes people forget that it is a business.

Abir: Maybe because I come from a financial background, I always look at it in these terms. But that’s the only way you can make this sustainable. It has to be market driven. You cannot force a model on to the public via a subsidy which so many of these did. You have to change minds, you have to change tastes, you have to change attitudes and that is a very long process unfortunately. Or maybe there will be a moment like we had with Scandi fiction. Knowing my luck, it will be Vaseem who does that. You know what (laughing) more power to him. As long as somebody does it.

Ayo: Is there anything that makes you fearful?

Abir: Yes, the whole world right now makes me fearful. Intolerance makes me fearful, the state of the country and the world. The lack of seriousness in our politicians. The lack of willingness to do things for the greater good as opposed to a small subset. Fear, hatred, anger – all of these things worry the shit out of me. But at the end of the day the only way you deal with any of these things is by dialogue, by talking, by making people laugh. You can’t hate someone who makes you laugh.

Ayo: How do you counterbalance your writing? I know that you have got the podcast.

Abir – Whiskey! Whiskey is a good counterbalance to most things and falling in rivers. I think family life really, that’s the counterbalance. It doesn’t matter what happens, you can win an award like the Theakston’s or the British Book Award, but you still get told to put the bins out, shouted at for putting the wrong things in the washing machine. It doesn’t matter who you are; or it certainly doesn’t work in our house.

Ayo: What are the few things that you like about the crime writing community?

Abir: Oh gosh – It’s brilliant. I mean look at it.  It is so friendly, so collegiate. It is a wonderful world both in terms of writers and readers. Everybody looks out for everyone else. Since the day I started in this industry people like Val McDermid, Ian Rankin, Lee Child have gone out of their way to help and that’s mental. Which industry can you go into and the best people in it will go out of their way to help a novice. It doesn’t happen. People think of themselves as too important generally but not in this industry. Everybody is so down to earth. (laughing) which upsets me as I’m not allowed to be a diva at any point.

Ayo: Who wants to be a diva within the crime writing community?

Abir: It would be amazing it would be. I would be a fantastic diva (laughing). I just won’t be given the chance.

Ayo: Last two questions. What books have you read recently that you would recommend.

Abir: You like putting me on the spot. – Oh, The Good Liar by Denise Mina which is phenomenal. Again, nobody gets under the skin of people and understands human nature like she does. I’m going to give you a non-crime book. – The Shortest History of Migration by Ian Golding. I thought I need to know about this as it is going on right now and it is eye-opening.

Ayo: Any last words?

Abir: Thank you so much for this interview, thank you so much to all the readers, I hope that you read my books.

 

The Burning Grounds by Abir Mukherjee (Vintage Publishing) Out Now

In the Burning Ghats of Calcutta where the dead are laid to rest, a man is found murdered, his throat cut from ear to ear. The body is that of a popular patron of the arts, a man who was, by all accounts, beloved by all: so what was the motive for his murder? Despite being out of favour with the Imperial Police Force, Detective Sam Wyndham is assigned to the case and finds himself thrust into the glamorous world of Indian cinema. Meanwhile Surendranath Banerjee, recently returned from Europe after three years spent running from the fallout of his last case, is searching for a missing photographer; a trailblazing woman at the forefront of the profession. When Suren discovers that the vanished woman is linked to Sam's murder investigation, the two men find themselves working together once again - but will Wyndham and Banerjee be able to put their differences aside to solve the case?

The Shots review of The Burning Grounds can be read here.

More information about Abir Mukherjee and his books can be found on his website. He can also be found on Facebook, on Instagram and on Twitter @radiomukhers