Review: THE WAITER, Ajay Chowdhury

• 
  This edition read on Kindle (Amazon)
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B088GQDNLG
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage Digital (27 May 2021)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 283 pages

Synopsis (Amazon)

Ex-detective Kamil Rahman is embroiled in a case that might just change his life - for better or for worse . . .

Disgraced detective Kamil Rahman moves from Kolkata to London to start afresh as a waiter in an Indian restaurant. But the peace of his new life is soon shattered. The day Kamil caters an extravagant party, the powerful host, Rakesh, is found dead in his swimming pool.

Suspicion falls on Rakesh's young and glamorous new wife, and Kamil is called to investigate for the family. Kamil and Anjoli, his boss's daughter, prove a winning team - yet as the case progresses, and their relationship grows, the events of Kamil's past threaten to catch up with him . . .

My Take

Dismissed and disgraced Kolkata detective Kamil Rahman moves to London to shake off his past but he soon finds himself attempting to solve another murder, and to his amazement finds the events are connected, and that people have followed him to London.

A competently constructed first novel with an interesting scenario.

My rating: 4.3

About the author

Ajay Chowdhury was 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, published in 2021, is the first in his critically-acclaimed crime series about Kamil Rahman, an ex-policeman from Kolkata who has moved to Brick Lane in London. It is being adapted for television by Moonage Pictures. Follow-up The Cook was published in May 2022 to excellent reviews and deals with the issue of homelessness. The third book in the series - The Detective - is about government surveillance and AI.