The Shadow by Ajay Chowdhury

The Shadow is the fifth book in Ajay Chowdhury’s Kamil Rahman crime fiction series. And like every other book in this series, it takes its cues from a slightly different part of the crime genre toolkit. The series started with The Waiter in which Kamil Rahman comes disgraced to London and solves a crime as an amateur detective. By Book 3, The Detective, Rahman was back on the police force and engaged in more of a down the line procedural. Book 4, The Spy, involved Rahman with MI5 and international intrigue. The Shadow pivots again, sending Rahman back to India where he is asked to shadow a police investigation and help an old friend who is concerned about a family curse.

Of course, no Kamil Rahman book would be complete without his unrequited best friend Anjoli. At the end of The Spy the two had decided to open a detective agency together (a seemingly clear path for the following book) but when the book opens Rahman is having second thoughts. When Rahman is asked by his boss to go to Mumbai to ensure the repatriation of an English engineer killed in mysterious circumstances, he asks Anjoli to accompany him. They arrive to find that his old friend Darius, who owns the firm that the engineer worked for, and his wife Zara are concerned about a family curse in which his father and grandfather both died on their 47th birthdays, and Darius’s 47th birthday is coming up.

The Shadow mixes police procedural elements with amateur sleuthing as Rahman tries to solve the crime (and a number of other murders that start to dog the investigation) from the outside. But where this entry shines is in its engagement with the history, populations and feel of being in Mumbai. From its opening during the Partition riots, through to its visits to the highs and lows, temples, parks and restaurants, Chowdhury gives a great feel for the city. He also manages to run two very different mysteries – the present day deaths and the historical ‘deaths by curse’ and draw them together cleverly.

The Shadow is another great entry in a series that shifts with every volume and is much darker than many of the previous volumes in this series (although The Spy had some equally serious themes). There is plenty of quite gruesome death and much of the underlying explanation for pretty much everything is tragic. But in the middle of it all are the engaging pair of Kamil and Anjoli with their will-they-won’t they relationship, as the light and the positivity that keeps this series afloat.

The Shadow by Ajay Chowdhury

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8.0/10