The Dying Day

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What to expect

The second brilliant novel in the highly acclaimed Malabar House series featuring Persis Wadia, India's first female police detective.

A priceless manuscript. A missing scholar. A trail of riddles.

Bombay, 1950

For over a century, one of the world's great treasures, a six-hundred-year-old copy of Dante's The Divine Comedy, has been safely housed at Bombay's Asiatic Society. But when it vanishes, together with the man charged with its care, British scholar and war hero, John Healy, the case lands on Inspector Persis Wadia's desk.

Uncovering a series of complex riddles written in verse, Persis - together with English forensic scientist Archie Blackfinch - is soon on the trail. But then they discover the first body.

As the death toll mounts it becomes evident that someone else is also pursuing this priceless artefact and will stop at nothing to possess it . . .

Harking back to an era of darkness, this second thriller in the Malabar House series pits Persis, once again, against her peers, a changing India, and an evil of limitless intent.

Gripping, immersive, and full of Vaseem Khan's trademark wit, this is historical fiction at its finest.

(P) 2021 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critics Review

This is a crime novel for everyone; for those who love traditional mysteries there are clues, codes and ciphers, but it also had a harder edge and a post-war darkness. A brilliant second outing for Persis Wadia
Ann Cleeves
The Da Vinci Code meets post-Independence India. I'd be surprised if I read a better book this year
M.W. Craven
Persis is brave, admirable, complicated and maddening, and is one of the few superlative and original characters emerging from modern literature
On-Magazine
As this charming series continues, readers will be cheering [Persis's] successes
SHOTS
A thoroughly enjoyable yarn, complete with atmospheric setting, intricate puzzle-solving and much derring-do
Mail on Sunday
The second in this excellent series . . . a delicious treat of a historical crime novel
The Observer
Early indications are that Vaseem Khan has struck gold by setting detective novels in 1950s Bombay. And that is why this is a gem of a novel
The Eastern Eye
A wonderful, pacy, literary mystery
Steve Cavanagh
A hugely entertaining, devilishly clever and immersive murder mystery
Antonia Hodgson
Vaseem Khan is at the height of his powers in The Dying Day . . . First-rate story telling from a first-rate writer
Daily Express Books of the Year, chosen by Imran Mahmood
Reminiscent of some of the classics of crime fiction
Crime Review

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