My father hails from India, where my first book became a national bestseller when I was 17. My co-author Thomas Locke has written over a dozen thrillers and even more adventure novels. We are both fascinated by India as a land of endless contrasts. From its cuisine and customs to the diverse people and landscape, India can be overwhelming, but never boring. The ancient backdrop of beautiful buildings and interwoven histories whisper secrets and beckon for adventure. Both of us have visited over 40 countries and enjoy reading and writing about multicultural characters. Especially when they want to conquer or save the world!
Consummate adventurer Jeremy Spade arranges ‘life-changing trips’ in the deserts, mountains, and jungles of Asia. His firm lets the world’s richest experience the world’s wildest parts, all from the comfort of an air-conditioned tent with a Michelin-class chef on call. When their helicopter is shot down, Jeremy saves an heiress who was betrothed in her teens to seal the bond between two of India’s most powerful clans.
If any of them are to survive, they will have to face the dark secret they hoped to leave in the Thar desert – a mystery that has kept India’s elite in power for generations. Defying an ancient cabal might just be the shot at romance and redemption they have both been waiting for. But when ancient Asian secrets are involved, they're usually blood-stained.
I especially loved how the romantic elements were woven into this incredible mystery adventure. The characters were larger than life, and the goals they set out to achieve were equally audacious. This to me was a great adventure, great mystery, and truly a great thriller. How to conquer a nation, how to indulge the fantasies and make them reality, and in the process give form to two broken lives.
Both the lyrical story-poem itself and the film adaptation had an immense impact on my early writing. It was not the story itself that so enthralled and challenged me. Rather, I wanted to reach for these great heights. I personally feel too much of today's writing is limited by small visions.
Literature’s most famous adventure story, this stirring tale of two happy-go-lucky British ne’re-do-wells trying to carve out their own kingdom in the remote mountains of Afghanistan has also proved over time to be a work of penetrating and lasting political insight—amidst its raucous humor and swashbuckling bravado is a devastatingly astute dissection of imperialism and its heroic pretensions.
I love a Sherlock and Watson kind of relationship, and this one fit the early days of the British Raj perfectly. Two Brits in the employ of the East India Trading company who could not be more different. Avery is very much part of the system and eager to please. His mysterious guide, Jeremiah Blake, is critical of the Company and gets on far better with the wide cast of locals. I soaked up the historical setting, and the growing intrigue tided me over to the last third, which delivers everything you’d want in a historical thriller.
Set in the untamed wilds of nineteenth-century colonial India, this dazzling historical thriller introduces Blake and Avery—an unforgettable investigative pair.
India, 1837: William Avery is a young soldier with few prospects except rotting away in campaigns in India; Jeremiah Blake is a secret political agent gone native, a genius at languages and disguises, disenchanted with the whole ethos of British rule, but who cannot resist the challenge of an unresolved mystery. What starts as a wild goose chase for this unlikely pair—trying to track down a missing writer who lifts the lid on Calcutta society—becomes very much more sinister as…
This one haunted me with its matter-of-fact portrayal of the highs and lows of life in modern India. Dark humor makes the heavy themes go down smoothly. I was fascinated by the harsh reality of life for a low-caste Indian who wants to please masters who end up throwing him under the bus, almost literally. I liked the complicated relationship between master and servant, especially with Western influences in the mix. Adiga juxtaposes past and present, East and West, idealism and necessity. I enjoyed the feeling of wanting and not wanting the protagonist to succeed. Disturbing and heart-wrenching!
Balram Halwai is the White Tiger - the smartest boy in his village. His family is too poor for him to afford for him to finish school and he has to work in a teashop, breaking coals and wiping tables. But Balram gets his break when a rich man hires him as a chauffeur, and takes him to live in Delhi. The city is a revelation. As he drives his master to shopping malls and call centres, Balram becomes increasingly aware of immense wealth and opportunity all around him, while knowing that he…
I met Gregory David Roberts when we were both reading at a literary festival in Mumbai, or Bombay, where much of this epic novel is set. I loved getting to know the main character (based on Roberts), Australia’s “most wanted man,” as he finds his new place in the world, in India. Vivid descriptions breathe life into characters and settings. They make the hero come alive, too, and help him reinvent himself – several times. This reflects the diversity of life in India. Epic in every sense.
Now a major television series from Apple TV+ starring Charlie Hunnam!
“It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.”
An escaped convict with a false passport, Lin flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of Bombay, where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter the city’s hidden society of beggars and gangsters,…
Identity and honour are at the heart of this epic historical adventure. Being half Indian and half British myself, I identified with the main character, Ash. I love how he doesn’t even know of his British heritage until later in life, and how his upbringing among Indians causes him grief when he tries to fit in with “his own kind,” both in England, and on his return to India. I enjoyed Ash’s awkwardness, rashness, and creativity serving as a go-between for not just two, but many peoples. The diplomatic dilemmas are gripping, the obstacles to a forbidden love with a half-caste princess excruciating. A word on the climax: no one has written a better scene about honourable death in battle than this lady! The ending is even better – rarely has a book touched me so.
This is a BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of M.M. Kaye's epic novel of love and war. M.M. Kaye's masterwork is a vast, rich and vibrant tapestry of love and war that spans over twenty years, moving from the foothills of the Himalayas, to the burning plains, to the besieged British Mission in Kabul. It begins in 1857 when, following the Indian Mutiny, young English orphan Ashton is disguised by his ayah Sita as her Indian son, Ashok. As he forgets his true identity, his destiny is set...A story of divided loyalties and fierce friendship; of true love made impossible…
I write historical crime fiction, and my latest novel is set in a hospital, a real place, now closed. The South London Hospital for Women and Children (1912–1985) was set up by pioneering suffragists and women surgeons Maud Chadburn and Eleanor Davies-Colley (the first woman admitted to the Royal College of Surgeons) and I recreate the now almost-forgotten hospital in my book. Events take place in 1946 when wartime trauma still impacts upon a society exhausted by conflict, and my book choices also reflect this.
A historical thriller set in south London just after World War II, as Britain returns to civilian life and the men return home from the fight, causing the women to leave their wartime roles. The South London Hospital for Women and Children is a hospital, (based on a real place) run by women for women and must make adjustments of its own. As austerity bites, the coldest Winter then on record makes life grim. Then a young nurse goes missing.
Days later, her body is found behind a locked door, and two women from the hospital, unimpressed by the police…
One cold dark night, as a devastated London shivers through the transition to post-war life, a young nurse goes missing from the South London Hospital for Women & Children. Her body is discovered hours later behind a locked door.
Two women from the hospital join forces to investigate the case. Determined not to return to the futures laid out for them before the war, the unlikely sleuths must face their own demons and dilemmas as they pursue - The Midnight Man.
‘A mystery that evokes the period – and a recovering London – in…
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