In The St Hilda's Spotlight - Ajay Chowdhury

 Name: Ajay Chowdhury

Job:- Author, Businessman and Theatre Director

Website:- https://ajaychowdhury.com

Instagram:- ajaychowdhury.author

Facebook:- ajay.chowdhury

X:- @ajaychow

Introduction:- Ajay Chowdhury is the author of six novels in the Detective Kamil Rahman his novels. He was the inaugural winner of the Harvill-Secker Bloody Scotland crime fiction award. His debut novel The Waiter and his third book The Detective were Sunday Times crime books of the month. His fourth book The Spy was longlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Novel. His fifth novel The Invitation is a free interactive novel. His sixth novel The Shadow was shortlisted for the Eastern Eye Crime Novel of the Year 2026. 

His most recent book is his first standalone novel entitled Eden Falls.

Current book? (This can either be the current book that you are reading or writing or both)

I’ve just started writing the eighth Kamil Rahman novel, which still feels slightly surreal. At the moment, all I know is that it’s about the pernicious influence of social media and is set in London’s East End. One of the joys of writing crime fiction is discovering the story as I go, so I’m excited to see where it leads. I’m also reading Len Deighton’s Billion-Dollar Brain, which is absolutely delightful.

Why do you think anti-heroes are so interesting to readers

The best anti-heroes are intelligent, charismatic and often strangely relatable, despite doing terrible things. They let us explore our darkest impulses from the safety of an armchair, which is both unsettling and oddly cathartic.

Which two anti-heroes or enemies would you invite to dinner and why?

Tom Ripley and Hannibal Lecter. I’d cook them a nice Indian meal (no liver), pour the Chianti and then sit back to watch the psychological sparring.

How do you relax?

Listening to music and watching television, mostly. At the moment I’m enjoying the Rolling Stones’ new album and Your Friends & Neighbours, which is enormous fun.

Which anti hero would you like to be on your side in a difficult situation.

Dexter Morgan. Assuming the person causing the difficult situation deserves it, his code should ensure everything works out rather well.

If you were to write a book involving an anti-hero where would you set it and why?

I already have. The Patriot, the next Kamil Rahman novel, is published in November. Its antagonist is a charming Sikh historian plotting an audacious theft of the Koh-i-Noor diamond from the Tower of London to return it to India. Much of the novel is told from his point of view, and writing someone so intelligent, persuasive with a powerful, if misguided, moral compass was a joy.

How would you describe your latest published book?

Eden Falls is my first standalone thriller and is a bit like Thelma & Louise at 100 miles an hour. A quantum physicist disappears, forcing his wife and his ex-girlfriend (who can barely stand each other) to race across America in search of him. Standing in their way is a tech trillionaire trying to weaponise AI, setting up a battle of immense power against determination, ingenuity and courage. 

With Bad Apples: crime fiction’s enemies and anti-heroes theme at St Hilda's this year, who are you three favourite anti-heroes

Leaving aside the ones I’ve already mentioned, and broadening the definition to include master criminals, I’d choose Professor Moriarty, A. J. Raffles and Ernst Stavro Blofeld. They each embody a different kind of villainy: intellect, charm and sheer audacity.

Which 3 films or television series featuring anti-heroes would you rewatch and why.

If HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey counts, then definitely HAL. It’s one of my favourite films, and HAL remains one of cinema’s greatest antagonists. I’d also happily rewatch The Sopranos and Breaking Bad any time. Tony Soprano and Walter White are two of the finest anti-heroes ever created.

What are you looking forward to at St Hilda's?

This will be my first visit, so I’m really looking forward to it. I love that the festival favours talks over panels, it’s equal parts terrifying and invigorating. And I suspect I may have a slightly different take on “Bad Apples” from some of the other speakers…

Eden Falls by Ajay Chowdhury (Vintage Publisher)

After the murder of his best friend, newlyweds Adam and Aisha cut their honeymoon short. But just as they are about to board a flight home from Delhi, Adam disappears at the airport – seemingly kidnapped – leaving Aisha stranded without her passport, her phone, or answers. When the FBI and India’s intelligence agency begin interrogating her, it becomes chillingly clear they know far more about Adam than she ever did. Her only clue is his final, haunting message: I’m sorry. Thousands of miles away, Sara Wolf, a scientist stuck on a dead-end project at Princeton, receives a message she never expected from her former lover. It contains two words: Help her. Bound together by suspicion, rivalry, and a man they both love, Aisha and Sara are forced into an uneasy alliance. Decoding Adam’s clues, they follow a trail that leads them across the United States - into a shadow world of weaponised AI, tech billionaires, and a secret no one is meant to find. Eden Falls is a gripping, high-stakes thriller that spans continents and asks how far we will go - and who we will trust - when the truth can destroy everything.

Information on how to buy online tickets can be found here. The programme can be found here.

Forthcoming Books from Harvill Secker

March 2026

The Other You is by Carys Green. ‘It will be all right,’ Nellie assured her with startling confidence. ‘I’m here to make things better. You’ll see.’ Elena and Stu are barely holding it together. Their newborn screams through the night, their nerves are frayed, and their marriage is hanging by a thread. Then comes More You: a company offering an impossible solution — a clone. For a price, they can have another Elena. One who is fresh. Alert. At first, it feels like salvation. The clone is calm, capable, perfect. But soon she starts to pick up Elena’s habits. Her voice. Her smile. And in the quiet hours of the night, something in the house begins to shift. When the cracks finally split wide open, Elena is forced to confront a terrifying question: if someone takes your place, what happens to you?

April 2026

Set in a town steeped in history and horror, the series follows DS Joseph Ashe, a young man haunted by the ghosts of his past and struggling with survivor’s guilt, and DI Laurie Bower, an outsider fighting to fit in.Every place has its ghosts. Edenscar, a town in the Peak District, has more than most. 17 years ago, its inhabitants were hit by tragedy when a school bus veered off the road and everyone on board drowned. Everyone, that is, except Joseph Ashe. His miraculous survival has haunted him and the town ever since. Now a Detective Sergeant in the local police, Joe is called to the scene of a brutal and apparently inexplicable crime. The whole town is spooked, but Joe’s new boss, DI Laurie Bower, more used to inner-city police work, has no time for superstition. She just wants to find the very real killer who has left no trace and apparently had no motive. Joining forces, Joe and Laurie work to uncover the secrets of Edenscar, both past and present. But when you dig up the dead, expect to get your hands dirty. The Drowning Place is by Sarah Hilary.

May 2026

Transference is by Robin Brookes. Leo and Viv's Friday night starts out like any other. A bottle of wine, a takeaway from their favourite Chinese restaurant, a movie, then an early night. But when Leo wakes up, he finds he's not in London anymore; he's naked and alone in an unfamiliar bed, in an anonymous hotel, on the other side of the world. Viv wakes up to a ringing phone. It's Leo - he claims that he's in Australia, despite the impossibility of it. An emergency passport is arranged. A return flight to London is booked, but before Leo can make it onto the plane, there's a flicker in the corner of his vision, and he wakes up in another bed, in another hotel room, in another country. Disoriented, Leo soon discovers he's not alone. Someone with access to a groundbreaking technology and an axe to grind is beaming a group of individuals around the globe - and hunting them down, one by one, committing perfect, untraceable murders. As Leo fights for his life, back in London, Viv is struggling to understand what's happening. But as her investigation deepens she starts to unearth secrets from Leo's past. Dark secrets. Secrets that might be enough to make someone want to kill him. And the more she learns about Leo, the less she seems to know - and the less certain she is that her husband is a man worth saving.

In a world of lies, proof is power. John Dyer is living a quiet life when he receives a call that changes everything: an old university friend, Lia, has been killed. Decades have passed since his last heartbreaking conversation with her, but Dyer finds himself driven to investigate. What Dyer uncovers puts him in the path of a political conspiracy with one man at its heart. A man who forty years ago committed a crime witnessed by just four people. When another of the witnesses dies in suspicious circumstances, Dyer finds himself in danger of his life. To combat the forces arrayed against him, he needs incontrovertible proof – but will he find it in time? As Dyer chases his leads from Tasmania to Argentina and finally to Michigan, where it all began, he unwittingly pits himself against an adversary more powerful than he could have imagined, in a race as heart stopping as tomorrow’s headlines. Frame 37 is by Nicholas Shakespeare.

June 2026

Pinnacle is by Abir Mukherjee. James Abercrombie is a Hollywood actor who’s past his prime. Ten years ago, he was box office. These days he’s more boxed wine and coffee adverts. But they still love him in Asia. On the set of a whisky commercial, he meets the beautiful Sweety Sahota, India’s queen of Bollywood, beloved by billions. Marrying her might revive his fortunes. They move to Mumbai and into The Pinnacle. Sweety’s career continues to sky-rocket. James’s not so much. He hates India – it’s hot and dirty and crowded and the food upsets his stomach. Soon the marriage is in trouble. Is she cheating on him? The papers seem to think so. They have a clandestine photo of her with her ex-boyfriend, Bollywood heart-throb Chunky. James hits the bottle, and after one particularly drunken session, wakes in the apartment to find Sweety dead in their bed, her throat slit. Did he kill her? He’s sure he didn’t, but who the hell’s going to believe him? He needs to find out who killed his wife and why, and he needs to do it fast; before the crime is pinned on him, because, let’s face it, he’s not going to get a fair trial. If he doesn’t work it out, he's as good as dead.

July 2026

When schoolgirls start fainting one after the other at a convent boarding school, old legends twist into new scandals. Centuries of tradition are coming to an end at St Cordula's school. Deputy Head, Fiona Fox, is about to preside over a controversial move to save it from ruin. But it’s not easy to change things at a school this old. Legend has it that the ghost of fifteenth-century nun, Sister Matilda, will keep St Cordula’s safe. But only as long as the words ‘GOD FORGIVE ME’, scrawled by Matilda on a chapel staircase wall before she fell to her death, are repainted every year. The words have only been allowed to fade once, in 2002. But then, fits of vertigo spread through the pupils, and a second girl fell to her death on the night stairs. Only three people know the truth of what happened on the night of the tragedy. Now the vertigo is back, and Fiona must stem the outbreak before it threatens St Cordula’s future, or worse, another girl loses her life. But when one of her pupils begins a dangerous investigation into the past, old secrets start to twist into new scandals… The Night Stairs is by Erin Kelly.

Eden Falls is by Ajay Chowdhury. Newlyweds Adam and Aisha are in an airport lounge in Delhi, their honeymoon abruptly cut short by the murder of Adam’s best friend. While Aisha waits, Adam disappears, leaving only a cryptic message: 'I’m sorry'. Stranded in India without documents, Aisha is interrogated by RAW, India’s intelligence agency, and the FBI – both of whom seem to know more about her husband’s disappearance than she does. At the same time Adam’s ex-lover, Sara, receives an urgent message from him: 'Help her'. Thrown together by circumstance and suspicion, Aisha and Sara decode Adam’s clues, which lead them across the US in a hunt to find Adam before it’s too late.

Longlist for the Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition

The Margery Allingham

Short Mystery Competition

Congratulations to all the nominated authors.

Books to Look Forward to From Vintage (Incl Harvill Secker)

 

January 2022

Two Storm Wood is by Philip Gray. The guns are silent. The dead are not. 1919. On the desolate battlefields of northern France, the guns of the Great War are silent. Special battalions now face the dangerous task of gathering up the dead for mass burial. Captain Mackenzie, a survivor of the war, cannot yet bring himself to go home. First he must see that his fallen comrades are recovered and laid to rest. His task is upended when a gruesome discovery is made beneath the ruins of a German strongpoint. Amy Vanneck's fiance is one soldier lost amongst many, but she cannot accept that his body may never be found. She heads to France, determined to discover what became of the man she loved. It soon becomes clear that what Mackenzie has uncovered is a war crime of inhuman savagery. As the dark truth leaches out, both he and Amy are drawn into the hunt for a psychopath, one for whom the atrocity at Two Storm Wood is not an end, but a beginning.

April 2022

Their mission is murder. His is revenge. Suzuki is just an ordinary man until his wife is murdered. When he discovers the criminal gang responsible he leaves behind his life as a maths teacher and joins them, looking for a chance to take his revenge. What he doesn't realise is that he's about to get drawn into a web of unusual professional assassins, each with their own agenda. The Whale convinces his victims to take their own lives using just his words. The Cicada is a talkative and deadly knife expert. The elusive Pusher dispatches his targets in deadly traffic accidents. Suzuki must take each of them on, in order to try to find justice and keep his innocence in a world of killers. Three Assassins is by Kotaro Isaka.

The Hippocratic Oath: First, do no harm... Dr Rea Dharmasena is devastated when she loses out on her dream research job to her med-school rival, Dr Julia Stone. When it comes to light that Julia got the job using Rea's own cutting edge research, Rea just can't let it go. Until finally, just after a life-changing medical discovery, Julia is found dead. Now Rea has the dream job she's always wanted. A job she would kill for. Deadly Cure is by Mahi Cheshire. 

May 2022

Kamil Rahman is a cook in a Brick Lane restaurant. But he used to be a detective back in Kolkata. And somehow trouble still knows how to find him. When a young woman Kamil knows is murdered the police are convinced her boyfriend is the culprit. Kamil isn't so sure and feels he has no choice but to start his own investigation. Meanwhile, his friend and restaurant manager, Anjoli, is troubled by a rise in the number of homeless deaths in their local area. The cases seem unrelated and as the duo dig deeper, discovering tentacles that stretch from Lahore to London, they find themselves in grave danger. Together they take on the indifference of the authorities to the homeless and the casual racism that pervades the investigation of killings of Muslims - all while a supremely intelligent murderer is manipulating events to stay several steps ahead of them. The Cook is by Ajay Chowdhury.

A Line to Kill is by Anthony Horowitz. It is M’s funeral. One man is missing from the graveside: the traitor who pulled the trigger and who is now in custody, accused of M’s murder – James Bond. Behind the Iron Curtain, a group of former SMERSH agents want to use the British spy in an operation that will change the balance of world power. Bond is smuggled into the lion’s den – but whose orders is he following, and will he obey them when the moment of truth arrives? In a mission where treachery is all around and one false move means death, Bond must grapple with the darkest questions about himself. But not even he knows what has happened to the man he used to be.

June 2022

Deception. Theft. Murder. All you need is confidence. When Lisa Lee, a vulnerable young woman, vanishes from a pretty Scottish seaside town Anna and Fin find themselves at the centre of an internet frenzy to find her. But Lisa may not be the hapless victim her father thinks. She had an unsuccessful YouTube channel and her last film showed her breaking into an abandoned French Chateau with other UrbExers and stumbling across a priceless Roman silver casket. One day after Lisa vanishes that casket gets listed for auction in Paris, reserve price fifty million euro and a catalogue entry that could challenge the fundamental principles of a major world religion. On a thrilling chase across Europe, Anna and Fin are caught up in a world of international art smuggling, billionaire con artists and religious zealotry. Confidence is by Denise Mina.

Sweet Dreams is by Anders Roslund. Two little girls go missing on the same day in Stockholm. Their disappearances are never explained. In time, the investigations are abandoned. A chance discovery puts Detective Ewert Grens back on the trail five years later. His own personal trauma makes him determined to find out what happened to these children who were snatched from a supermarket and a car park and never seen again and whose coffins lie empty in the local graveyard. His search leads him into the most repulsive recesses of the dark web and the discovery of a paedophile ring that can only be cracked from the inside. Grens is forced call upon his retired partner, Piet Hoffman, the best undercover operative he knows, to try to infiltrate the group. They will have only one chance - but are they up to the darkest challenge of their lives?

Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Award

 

Harvill Secker and Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival are back in 2021, collaborating to host an award that will seek the most exciting new crime fiction by writers of colour. The prize will be judged by winner of the inaugural competition and author of debut novel The Waiter, Ajay Chowdhury, journalist and public speaker Paula Akpan, Creative Producer at Words of Colour, Heather Marks and Harvill Secker Editorial Director Jade Chandler. 

Ajay Chowdhury is the winner of the inaugural Harvill Secker and Bloody Scotland Crime Writing competition. He is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director who lived the first third of his life in India and then moved to London. The Waiter is his debut crime thriller. 

Paula Akpan is a journalist, historian and public speaker. A sociology graduate from the University of Nottingham, her work mainly focuses on blackness, queerness, and social politics and she regularly writes for a variety of publications including Vogue, Teen Vogue, The Independent, Stylist, VICE, i-D, Bustle, Time Out London and more. She’s also contributed essays to collections including Slay In Your Lane’s anthology Loud Black Girls (4th Estate Books) and the UK Black Women’s movement for the forthcoming Queer Bible Anthology (HQ). Paula is currently studying Black British History as a fully-funded Masters student at Goldsmiths and is the director of charitable incorporated company The Black Queer Travel Guide. 

Heather Marks is Creative Producer at Words of Colour - a creative development agency for writers, creatives, and entrepreneurs of colour, that collaborates with organisations and institutions on systemic transformation programmes that facilitate inclusion and action. She's also part of the small but mighty No Bindings - an independent press and publishing innovation studio that designs and delivers hybrid print-audio productions and workshops, with a view to democratizing the story industry. Heather is also a freelance editor and journalist who has been featured in The Stage, The Bookseller, and Bristol 24/7. She writes historical fiction for young adults and has a first-look deal with Chicken House. 

Entrants to the competition will be asked to submit the first 5,000 words of their crime novel, along with a full plot outline. Entries will open on 2 June 2021 and will run until the 4 August 2021, with the winner announced in September 2021. 

The winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Award will have their book published, under the Harvill Secker imprint, in a publishing deal with an advance of £5,000. The prize package alongside the winner’s publishing contract will include being programmed for a panel appearance at the Bloody Scotland festival, and a guest pass for the weekend’s events. The Arvon Foundation is also supporting the competition as a sponsor – they are offering the winner the invaluable chance to attend any one of their creative writing courses. The Reading Agency are also working to support the award in 2021 and will be promoting the competition to libraries across the UK. 

Jade Chandler said: ‘Writers of colour remain underrepresented in crime and thriller writing, so I am proud that we are able to partner with Bloody Scotland once again to run this important writing competition. This genre is varied and offers exciting opportunities for page- turning, creative storytelling; I can’t wait to read this year’s entries. It has been a pleasure to work with Ajay Chowdhury on his debut crime novel, The Waiter, since he won the inaugural prize in 2018, and I’m delighted that he is joining us on the judging panel this time round!’ 

Bob McDevitt said: ‘Last year's virtual festival allowed us to invite writers of colour from every corner of the globe to create a truly diverse programme. We look forward to continuing that with this initiative helping us to discover home grown writers of colour leading to more diverse festivals overall.’ 

Ajay Chowdhury said: ‘Having enjoyed the utter thrill of my book, The Waiter, winning in 2018, and getting published, I’m so very happy to be part of the process of making this happen for someone else. Diverse voices make crime fiction richer and I’m excited about helping another writer share their unique viewpoint.’ 

Paula Akpan said: ‘I'm so excited to be joining the panel as a judge, especially as this genre is both one of my favourites to read but also a hard one to get right. Can't wait to get stuck in and see what all these budding writers and authors have whipped up!’ 

Heather Marks said: ‘I am so pleased to be joining the judging panel for the Harvill Secker- Bloody Scotland crime writing prize. Given the recommendations of last year's Rethinking Diversity in Publishing report, this is a great opportunity for a crime writer of colour to be published and supported with their craft. Bring on the suspense!’

More information about the competition and how to enter can be found here.

Ajay Chowdhury on The Road to The Waiter

A disgraced Kolkata copper working as a waiter in Brick Lane gets drawn into a web of murder and deceit. This idea had been percolating inside me for a couple of decades. One day, I heard that Harvill Secker and Bloody Scotland were running a competition for debut crime writers which meant that I might have a shot at being published. That was the motivation I needed to make me sit down and actually start typing the opening.

Like many of my generation, I’d grown up in India with Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, Perry Mason and Sherlock Holmes, however the only Indian detective I’d come across was Inspector Ganesh Ghote – H R F Keating’s marvellous creation. I liked Ghote, but he was as much of a caricature as Poirot (and famously Harry Keating didn’t even visit India until after he had written eight books about Ghote and Bombay!) So I’d always hankered after a ‘real’ Indian detective at work – someone I could see a bit of myself in, if you like.

My original idea was to have my copper come from Sylhet in Bangladesh because a lot of cooks and waiters in Indian restaurants in the UK are actually Bangladeshi and most of them hail from Sylhet. However, as I started writing, I realised I was falling into the same trap that Keating had – I’ve never been to Bangladesh. So, I switched tack and made him a Bengali from Kolkata, which I could write about with some sense of authenticity, having grown up there. 

I also needed him to have a foil and sidekick – the Watson to his Holmes (although Anjoli, his foil in the book, would NOT be happy being described as such). I was keen to have it be an ethnically Indian woman, again to explore life in Britain from a different angle. As I wrote, their chemistry grew, and she became almost as important a character in the book as Kamil, my protagonist.

So, what’s the book about? Kamil Rahman is a high flyer in the Kolkata CID when he is given his first big case to run – the murder of a major Bollywood star. As he investigates, he discovers a murky world of sleaze, corruption and politicking, and as he digs deeper, he falls foul of some powerful people and gets thrown out of the force. He moves to London to lick his wounds and the only job he can get is as a waiter in a restaurant in Brick Lane, working with the owner’s daughter Anjoli. Working a birthday party for an industrialist in Hampstead, he finds the millionaire dead in his pool and starts to investigate the death, helped by Anjoli. Slowly the strands come together and the climax leaves Kamil questioning a lot of what he believed.

The book changed a great deal as I wrote it. My original conception of it had been a light read – somewhat akin to Alexander McCall Smith’s Precious Ramotswe books. But Kamil refused to be a warm, gregarious, empathetic detective like Mma Ramotswe, instead turning out to be far more tetchy, ambitious and insecure. The book also became far darker and funnier than I had originally intended – in fact the only things that remained from my original idea was the concept of the disgraced detective as a fish out of water in London and the food that permeates the book.

And that was the other thing I wanted to do. I love cooking and eating Indian food, and really wanted to bring to life a lot of the cuisine and more unusual Indian fare that I adore. I enjoyed writing about the food that Kamil was serving and the dishes he longed for as he sat in his tiny room in cold, rainy London – missing the warmth and sun of Kolkata.

I have been incredibly lucky. Not only did I win the Harvill Secker competition and the publishing deal, they have, incredibly, bought the next two books in the series as well – The Chef and The Detective. The final cherry on the cake was BBC Studios optioning the book, so who knows, we may see Kamil and Anjoli on screen some day, serving Kashmiri Rogan Josh and Chicken Berry Pulao in Tandoori Knights.

The Waiter by Ajay Chowdhury (Vintage Publishing) Out Now 

Kamil Rahman, disgraced detective, turned waiter, is about to find himself embroiled in a case that might just change his life ... for better or for worse. Ex-detective Kamil Rahman moves from Kolkata to London to start afresh as a waiter in an Indian restaurant. But the day he caters an extravagant party for his boss's rich and powerful friend, the peace of his simple new life is shattered. The event is a success, the food is delicious, but later that evening the host, Rakesh, is found dead in his swimming pool. Suspicion falls on Rakesh's young and glamorous new wife, Neha, and Kamil is called to investigate for the family, with the help of his boss's daughter Anjoli. Kamil and Anjoli prove a winning team - but as the investigation progresses, and their relationship grows, Kamil struggles to keep memories of the case that destroyed his career in Kolkata at bay. Little does he know that his past will soon catch up with him in some very unexpected ways.

Photo credit -  Angelina Melwani