The Edge of Darkness
On sale
22nd January 2026
Price: £22
Genre
‘Persis Wadia, denizen of India’s own Slough House’ Alis Hawkins
‘Hugely entertaining, devilishly clever’ Antonia Hodgson
India, 1951. After wilfully ignoring orders, Persis Wadia, India’s first female police detective, is exiled from Bombay to the wild and mountainous Naga Hills District. As India’s first post-Independence election looms, and tensions rise across the country, Persis finds herself banished to the Hotel Victoria, a crumbling colonial-era relic, her career in tatters.
But when a prominent politician is murdered in his locked room at the Victoria, his head missing, she is thrust back into the fray. Is the murderer one of the foreigners staying at the hotel or an insurgent from the surrounding jungle? As the political situation threatens to explode, Persis has only days to stop a killer operating at the very edge of darkness…
‘Historical fiction at its finest’ Mail on Sunday
‘Brilliant!’ Ann Cleeves
‘Khan writes with charm and wit, and an eye for detail that transports the reader entirely’ Chris Whitaker
‘Persis is a brilliant creation and this is historical fiction at its finest’ Daily Mirror
**Discover the charming and cozy Baby Ganesh crime series by Vaseem Khan, available now**
‘Hugely entertaining, devilishly clever’ Antonia Hodgson
India, 1951. After wilfully ignoring orders, Persis Wadia, India’s first female police detective, is exiled from Bombay to the wild and mountainous Naga Hills District. As India’s first post-Independence election looms, and tensions rise across the country, Persis finds herself banished to the Hotel Victoria, a crumbling colonial-era relic, her career in tatters.
But when a prominent politician is murdered in his locked room at the Victoria, his head missing, she is thrust back into the fray. Is the murderer one of the foreigners staying at the hotel or an insurgent from the surrounding jungle? As the political situation threatens to explode, Persis has only days to stop a killer operating at the very edge of darkness…
‘Historical fiction at its finest’ Mail on Sunday
‘Brilliant!’ Ann Cleeves
‘Khan writes with charm and wit, and an eye for detail that transports the reader entirely’ Chris Whitaker
‘Persis is a brilliant creation and this is historical fiction at its finest’ Daily Mirror
**Discover the charming and cozy Baby Ganesh crime series by Vaseem Khan, available now**
Reviews
Historical fiction at its finest
Brilliant!
Vaseem Khan writes with charm and wit, and an eye for detail that transports the reader entirely. I couldn't love this series more
Persis is a brilliant creation and this is historical fiction at its finest
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
