The Laetitia Rodd mysteries by Kate Saunders – starting with ‘The Secrets of Wishtide’, this series features a genteel Victorian lady detective who finds herself in reduced circumstances after her husband’s death. I can highly recommend ‘Evil Things’ by Katja Ivar– her heroine, Inspector Hella Mauzer, is the first woman to be accepted into Helsinki’s Homicide Unit in 1940s Finland. She is the first female police officer in India but they don’t know what to with her so she’s stuck with the transgressors and losers at the Malabar House station (think Mick Herron’s Slow Horses without the humour).

Midnight at Malabar House (Inspector Wadia series) Midnight at Malabar House (Inspector Wadia series)

As an incidental, I loved the resolution in the novel which taught her a valuable lesson in politics and it will be interesting to see if she learns it in future novels. Persis Wadia in ‘Midnight at Malabar House’ is India’s first police detective and pioneering women is definitely a trope I love in my crime fiction! I've always been a fan of Vaseem Khan but this latest offering is something special and something new. In Persis Wadia, India's first female police detective, and Archie Blackfinch, a Scotland Yard forensics expert, Vaseem Khan has created a partnership that should hopefully run and run.The characters are wonderfully built, the setting of the book is vivid and Persis's personality is gold. There are several huge factors that would not keep me within this series, most of them are closely tied to writing style. Her father had always reasoned that if anyone was minded enough to steal books, either they were in dire need of them but could not afford them – in which case they were welcome to them – or, if they happened to be confused thieves, then it was better to have well-read thieves roaming the city than illiterate ones. I have read quite a few books about India, set in India or Pakistan and I still learned stuff I didn't know.

Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan | Hachette UK Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan | Hachette UK

You - like me - will end the book wondering what is next for Inspector Wadia and very much looking forward to finding out. The reader begins to suspect the reality of Alex’s past just as she does, with Watson adroitly bringing the strands of his story together to create a disturbing journey to a shocking truth. The history of our country, its leaders, politics and the communal riots that trailed after the partition are very well narrated. Watson moves between past and present as he unravels the mystery at the heart of the community: a history in which a girl found on a beach is being treated for dissociative fugue with dissociative amnesia, and a present in which Alex is asking questions about the disappearance of the girls.Aunt Nussie is insistent in her plans to get Persis married and producing children, but marriage will mean having to leave the police, and Persis hasn't worked so hard to get to where she is to let go of her ambitions and ideals so lightly. In 2020, Midnight at Malabar House was published, introducing India’s first female police detective, Persis Wadia.

Midnight at Malabar House (The Malabar House Series) by

His first book, The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, was a Times bestseller and has been translated into 15 languages. Gabriel Bergmoser’s short, shocking debut is less thriller than black-as-pitch descent into nightmare.

But those of you who want 1/2 history lecture, 1/2 dry closed room top down who-dun-it with other possible procedural placements? Wadia also wonders why Herriot’s aide Madan Lal approached her unit rather than the better-connected CID.

Midnight at Malabar House: Winner of the CWA Historical Midnight at Malabar House: Winner of the CWA Historical

As I’d already reviewed ‘Midnight at Malabar House’ on this blog – above is a copy of my previous review – as a bonus, I thought I’d suggest a few other books that you’d like if ‘Midnight at Malabar House’ sounds like your kind of thing! the mystery was good, though nothing you couldn't figure atleast half way through, but knowing the answer didn't remove the enjoyment of the road and the main characters very strange and unique way of handling things, and the historical environment.Vaseem Khan uses the framework to tell a lot about the history of the time and the partition disaster.