Welcome to this week’s episode of Tracy Talks To…, and I’m thrilled to be chatting to some old mates – Imran, Abir and Vas, I’ve met them all at several crime festivals and book events and believe me when I say they are absolute gentlemen and wonderful authors too.
Imran Mahmood is a criminal defence barrister with over 20 years’ experience in the Crown Court and Court of Appeal. He specializes in Legal Aid cases involving violent crimes as well as fraud and sexual offences. He was born in Liverpool and now lives in London with his wife and 2 daughters.
His first novel You Don’t Know Me, which was shortlisted for the Glass Bell Award in 2018, is due to be dramatised for the BBC.
His second novel I Know What I Saw is being published in June 2021.
Abir Mukherjee grew up in the west of Scotland. At the age of fifteen, his best friend made him read Gorky Park and he’s been a fan of crime fiction ever since. The child of immigrants from India, A Rising Man, his debut novel, was inspired by a desire to learn more about a crucial period in Anglo-Indian history that seems to have been almost forgotten. A Rising Man won the Harvill Secker/Daily Telegraph crime writing competition and became the first in a series starring Captain Sam Wyndham and ‘Surrender-not’ Banerjee. It went on to win the CWA Historical Dagger and was shortlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award. Abir lives in London with his wife and two sons
Vaseem Khan is the author of the Baby Ganesh Agency crime novels set in modern Mumbai, India. His aim with the series is to take readers on a journey to the heart of modern India, showcasing both the colour and darker aspects of this incredible country. The first novel in his new historical crime series set in 1950s India, MIDNIGHT AT MALABAR HOUSE, features India’s first female police detective.
His first book THE UNEXPECTED INHERITANCE OF INSPECTOR CHOPRA was a Times Bestseller and an Amazon Best Debut. The second in the series THE PERPLEXING THEFT OF THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN won the 2017 Shamus Award for Best Original Private Investigator Paperback. The third, THE STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF A BOLLYWOOD STAR focused on India’s movie industry, and the fourth, MURDER AT THE GRAND RAJ PALACE, was described by Publisher’s Weekly as “the best entry in the series to date”. The fifth is called BAD DAY AT THE VULTURE CLUB.
Vaseem was born in London in 1973, studied finance at the London School of Economics, before spending a decade on the subcontinent. He returned to the UK in 2006 and has since worked at University College London for the Department of Security and Crime Science. Elephants are third on his list of passions, first and second being great literature and cricket, not always in that order.
