The Waiter

Auteur

Ajay Chowdhury is the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland crime fiction award. He is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director who was born in India and now lives in London where he builds digital businesses, cooks experimental dishes for his wife and daughters and writes through the night. His children's book, Ayesha and the Firefish, was published in 2016 and adapted into a musical.

The Waiter is the first in his adult crime series about Kamil Rahman, an ex-policeman from Calcutta who has moved to Brick Lane in London. It has been optioned by BBC Studios. Follow up, The Cook, was published in May 2022 to critical acclaim and deals with the issue of homelessness. Ajay is currently writing and cooking up a storm for the next instalment.

Texte du rabat

A SUNDAY TIMES CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH

'This detective waiter has all the ingredients for a great crime series' Sun
'A rip-roaring mystery that's engrossing from start to finish... a refreshing and welcome addition to the world of detective fiction' Abir Mukherjee author of Death in the East

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.

'[An] outstanding debut' Sunday Times

'A hugely entertaining first novel, taking us from Kolkata to Brick Lane' Ann Cleeves

'[Kamil Rahman is a] likeable inspector...we shall hear much more of him' Daily Mail
'Corruption, self-interest and the considerable gap between law and justice raise their heads in [The Waiter]...Kamil makes an appealing narrator, haunted but gently humorous and always humane' Guardian