Tech entrepreneur turned terrific crime writer Ajay Chowdhury once again delivers a tasty thriller with The Spy. It’s the fourth instalment in his outstanding series starring Kamil Rahman, the once-disgraced Kolkata detective who’s now found a new life in London as a waiter, chef, Met Police office and more, and amateur sleuth Anjoli.

Readers first met Kamil in Chowdhury’s terrific, award-winning debut The Waiter, where Kamil was eking out a new life in a friend’s Indian restaurant in London’s Brick Lane, before murder intervened. As the more-ish series has grown, Kamil has returned to policing with the Met, and in The Spy he’s recruited by MI5 to try to infiltrate a terrorist cell. Meanwhile some things haven’t changed, including his complicated relationship with his friend (or more?) and restauranteur Anjoli, who once again gets drawn into amateur sleuthing as she starts to investigate the kidnapping of a teenage boy.

As Kamil’s discoveries lead abroad, into the brutality and suffering of the long-running Kashmir conflict, he and Anjoli both face grave danger. Stakes are high, personally and politically. Chowdhury crafts another engrossing, highly readable tale that delves into some of the darkest issues while providing light through the humour and heart of the characters, not to mention some menu mentions. Delicious, on all fronts.

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ajay Chowdhury is the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland crime fiction award. He is a tech entrepreneur, writer and theatre director. His children’s novel ‘Ayesha and the Firefish’ was published in 2016. His first crime novel in the Kamil Rahman series – The Waiter – was published in 2021, was named the Sunday Times crime book of the month and has been optioned for television. Its follow ups – The Cook (2022) and The Detective (2023) – came out to strong reviews and he is currently working on the next book in the series – The Spy – due to be published in 2024.

He is the Artistic Director of the Rented Space Theatre Company that he formed in 1987 and has directed over a dozen plays in London including ‘The Merchant of Vembley’ at the Cockpit Theatre and ‘Cymbeline’ at the Etcetera.

On the business front, Ajay has been the founder or CEO of several startups, including Shazam (sold to Apple), Seatwave (sold to Ticketmaster) and LineOne (sold to Tiscali). He has served on the boards of Lionhead, Department of Culture Media and Sport, Arts Council London, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and Historic Royal Palaces amongst others.

He is currently a Managing Director and Senior Partner at BCG Digital Ventures, globally responsible for their ‘deep tech’ businesses, and Chair of Cambridge Enterprise, Cambridge University’s spinout arm. He is a Trustee of the renowned Cheek by Jowl Theatre Company and is a board member of Enacte – a San Francisco based South Asian Theatre Company.

He was selected to be part of the Asian Power 100 – the 100 most influential and powerful Asians in the UK and was selected as one of 2016’s Sunday Times top 100 BAME business leaders in the UK.

Visit Ajay Chowdhury’s website