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  • Published: 9 July 2024
  • ISBN: 9781787304024
  • Imprint: Harvill Secker
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $34.99

The Spy




The fourth instalment of the Kamil Rahman murder mystery series, THE SPY sees Kamil and his amateur-sleuth restaurant manager partner, Anjoli thrown into the midst of a terrorist plot

ONE BOY MISSING. ONE MAN UNDERCOVER. A WHOLE NATION AT RISK.

Detective Kamil Rahman is working for the Met Police when he gets the call from MI5. They’ve received intelligence of a terrorist plot, and it’s Kamil they need.

Posing as a disaffected cop, and working back in his friend Anjoli’s beloved restaurant on Brick Lane, Kamil attempts to infiltrate the cell. What he uncovers leads him halfway across the world to Kashmir, and face to face with an old nemesis.

Meanwhile Anjoli starts to investigate the disappearance of a young boy who’s sending coded messages to his parents. As she attempts to solve his clues, she finds herself in greater danger than she could have imagined.

Time is running out for Kamil and Anjoli: can they save the boy, and save a nation, before it’s too late?


For fans of Robert Galbraith, Anthony Horowitz and Elly Griffiths, The Spy is the compelling, thought-provoking new mystery in the Detective Kamil Rahman series.

  • Published: 9 July 2024
  • ISBN: 9781787304024
  • Imprint: Harvill Secker
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $34.99

About the author

Ajay Chowdhury

Ajay Chowdhury is the winner of the inaugural Harvill Secker and Bloody Scotland competition. He is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director who lived the first third of his life in India and then moved to London, where he cooks experimental meals for his wife and daughters. His first children’s book, Ayesha and the Firefish, was published in 2016 and The Waiter is his debut crime thriller.

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Praise for The Spy

Ever since I discovered Ajay Chowdhury's wonderful Kamil Rahman detective novels, they have offered a feast of great stories, vivid characters, mouth-watering food and fascinating insight into the world of Bengali Muslims in London's Brick Lane. I love his mix of humane feeling, romantic comedy and very modern plotting. THE SPY is his fourth and most ambitious, tackling trans-continental crime,.and pitting his engagingly modest, emotionally confused and very brave hero against the worst villain yet. He is a pleasure to read.

Amanda Craig

Nobody writes about modern London like Ajay Chowdhury. This book rings with passion for the city's life, its food, its politics - and above all - its darkness.

William Shaw

An intelligent, immersive thriller absolutely brimming with tension. Ajay Chowdhury’s deftness of touch brings both realism and sensitivity to a difficult theme. Superb writing

Marion Todd

The Kamil & Anjoli crime fiction series from Ajay Chowdhury is bursting with innovative thinking... If you’re new to Kamil, what joy for you to have a long & growing series ahead of you

Paul Waters

The plot races to a splendidly dramatic ending; Chowdhury’s writing is compelling and compassionate, especially on the themes of displacement, and divided loyalties personal and political.

The Guardian

Chowdhury is brilliant at incidental detail and unexpected plot twists, while highlighting the conflicts experienced by characters with a foot in more than one culture

Sunday Times