City of Destruction The gripping and unputdownable new Malabar House mystery

'Vaseem Khan writes with charm and wit, and an eye for detail that transports the reader entirely. I couldn't love this series more' CHRIS WHITAKER
'Historical fiction at its finest' MAIL ON SUNDAY

From the award-winning author of MIDNIGHT AT MALABAR HOUSE and THE LOST MAN OF BOMBAY comes a brilliant new mystery featuring the inimitable Persis Wadia.

Bombay, 1951. A political rally ends in tragedy when India's first female police detective, Persis Wadia, kills a lone gunman as he attempts to assassinate the divisive new defence minister, a man calling for war with India's new post-Independence neighbours.

With the Malabar House team tasked to hunt down the assassin's co-conspirators - aided by agents from Britain's MI6 security service - Persis is quickly relegated to the sidelines. But then she is given a second case, the burned body of an unidentified white man found on a Bombay beach. As she pursues both investigations - with and without official sanction - she soon finds herself headed to the country's capital, New Delhi, a city where ancient and modern India openly clash.

Meanwhile, Persis's colleague, Scotland Yard criminalist Archie Blackfinch, lies in a hospital fighting for his life as all around him the country tears itself apart in the prelude to war...

Vaseem Khan is the author of two crime series set in India: the Baby Ganesh Agency series, and the Malabar House historical crime novels.


His first book, The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, was a Times bestseller and has been translated into 16 languages. Midnight at Malabar House won the CWA Historical Fiction Dagger in 2021 and was shortlisted for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year.


Vaseem was born in London, but spent a decade working in India as a management consultant.

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