The Edge of Darkness
the warm, witty and utterly addictive cozy mystery with a brilliant female sleuth
Will be published approx. on 24. September 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
336 pages
978-1-3997-4786-8 (ISBN)
Description
India, 1951. After wilfully ignoring orders from her superiors, Persis Wadia, India's first female police detective, has been exiled from Bombay to the wild and mountainous state of Nagaland. As India's first post-Independence election looms, and tensions rise across the country, Persis finds herself banished to the Victoria Hotel, a crumbling colonial-era relic, her career in ruins.
But when a prominent local politician is murdered in his locked room at the Victoria Hotel, his head missing - a case appears quite literally on her doorstep. As the political situation threatens to explode into all-out havoc, Persis has only days to stop a killer operating at the very edge of darkness...
The sixth rip-roaring thriller in the award-winning Malabar House novels and a perfect entry point to the series.
But when a prominent local politician is murdered in his locked room at the Victoria Hotel, his head missing - a case appears quite literally on her doorstep. As the political situation threatens to explode into all-out havoc, Persis has only days to stop a killer operating at the very edge of darkness...
The sixth rip-roaring thriller in the award-winning Malabar House novels and a perfect entry point to the series.
Reviews / Votes
Historical fiction at its finest * Mail on Sunday * Brilliant! -- Ann Cleeves Vaseem Khan writes with charm and wit, and an eye for detail that transports the reader entirely. I couldn't love this series more -- Chris Whitaker Persis is a brilliant creation and this is historical fiction at its finest * Daily Mirror * Persis Wadia, denizen of India's own Slough House - Malabar House in Bombay - has been further sidelined. She is a brilliant creation... With a satisfying backdrop of little-known aspects of newly-independent India's history and the ever-present tension with the remaining British colonists, this is a richly satisfying book at many levels -- Alis HawkinsMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Hodder & Stoughton
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-3997-4786-8 (9781399747868)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Vaseem Khan is the author of several award-winning crime series including the Baby Ganesh Agency adventures, set in modern Mumbai, and the Malabar House historical crime novels, set in 1950s Bombay.
His first book, The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, was selected by the Sunday Times as one of the 40 best crime novels published in 2015-2020, and has been translated into 17 languages. Midnight at Malabar House, the first in the Malabar House series, won the Crime Writers' Association Historical Dagger.
Vaseem has won numerous awards for his work, including, most recently, the Fingerprint Award for Historical Crime Novel of the Year for City of Destruction, the fifth in the Malabar House series. Vaseem is also the author of The Girl in Cell A, a psychological thriller set in small town America, and Quantum of Menace, the first in a series featuring Q from the world of James Bond.
His first book, The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, was selected by the Sunday Times as one of the 40 best crime novels published in 2015-2020, and has been translated into 17 languages. Midnight at Malabar House, the first in the Malabar House series, won the Crime Writers' Association Historical Dagger.
Vaseem has won numerous awards for his work, including, most recently, the Fingerprint Award for Historical Crime Novel of the Year for City of Destruction, the fifth in the Malabar House series. Vaseem is also the author of The Girl in Cell A, a psychological thriller set in small town America, and Quantum of Menace, the first in a series featuring Q from the world of James Bond.