Bombay, 1951, and a political rally ends in tragedy when India’s first female police detective, Persis Wadia, kills a lone gunman as he attempts to assassinate the divisive new defence minister, a man calling for war with India’s new post-Independence neighbours.
With the Malabar House team tasked to hunt down the assassin’s co-conspirators — aided by agents from Britain’s MI6 security service — Persis is quickly relegated to the sidelines.
But then she is given a second case, the burned body of an unidentified white man found on a Bombay beach. As she pursues both investigations — with and without official sanction — she soon finds herself headed to the country’s capital, New Delhi, a city where ancient and modern India openly clash.
Meanwhile, Persis’s colleague, Scotland Yard criminalist Archie Blackfinch, lies in a hospital fighting for his life as all around him the country tears itself apart in the prelude to war
City of Destruction by Vaseem Khan is published on 28 November, 2024. It’s the fifth in his Malabar House series.
Have a look at Vaseem’s Historia features Calcutta Blues: why Kipling despised the city and Partition, politics, and a prime minister’s passion.
Our list of over 200 books coming out this year may give you some more historical fiction reading ideas.
