Ajay Chowdhury, the author of The Shadow, is quite the modern renaissance man. He is not merely a writer of crime fiction but is also the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland crime fiction award; he is the author of Ayesha and the Firefish. a children’s book, the Artistic Director of the Rented Space Theatre Company as well as a tech entrepreneur to mention a few of the impressive activities he is involved in. He has written a series of crime thrillers creating his own duo of detectives, Kamil Rahman, employed by Scotland Yard, assisted by Anjoli, a psychologist, who runs a prestigious restaurant, Tandoori Knights, in Brick Lane. 

The epigraph “Old sins cast long shadows” is from Agatha Christie’s Nemesis is very appropriate and we are plunged straight into the very heart of the book. It is Friday, August 15, 1947 and while India is in the process of being born, Xerxes Mehta becomes a father to a baby boy. In this excitement, Xerxes hears trouble in the compound where a group of Muslims are seeking safety from a mob “brandishing tridents and swords….(with) flaming torches.” Mustafa, the Muslim watchman pleads with Xerxes to allow the seekers sanctuary  but he does not want to run the risk. The next morning, when Xerxes examines the devastation, he encounters Salim, who in addition to being his long time cook is also Mustafa’s brother. Salim is badly wounded but he has lost his entire family in the mayhem; he curses Xerxes and all his descendants that they would all die when they reached the age of 47. 

This curse seems to have worked its way through two generations: both Xerxes and his son, Cyrus, die on their 47th birthday and now it is the turn of Darius Mehta who is about to reach the fateful age very soon and who calls his old friend, Kamil Rahman, for help. 

At the same time, a British citizen, Peter Bell, an underground boring expert working for Darius Mehta, has been grotesquely murdered in Mumbai. Raham, is on the verge of handing in his resignation to the Metropolitan Police and start his own detective agency with Anjoli but he decides to take up this last assignment as it fulfils a dual purpose: he will “shadow” the Mumbai police on behalf of his employers and also try to help Darius Mehta with his problems.

Chowdhury keeps the reader in total suspense. Is there a connection between the murder of Peter Bell, who is working for Darius Mehta, a construction giant who runs a very successful company and who is presently constructing the prestigious coastal road? Bell hasn’t has been shot by eighteen arrows; is the number eighteen significant as it has several reference in Hindu mythology? In which case is it a ritual killing, a human sacrifice, one of a series, committed by a religious fundamentalist who seems to be on the rampage? The plot is convoluted and it keeps the reader guessing, always eager to turn the page, following the several twists and turns, till the unexpected denouement is revealed. 

The suspects are many, as well as the motives. To add to the woes of Rahman, the Indian Inspector Karve, in charge of the case, in addition to being unhelpful is positively antagonistic. “Why will I let a Muslim from Scotland Yard shadow me?” Chowdhury peppers his novel with several red herrings to keep up the suspense. Bell was living at the Oberoi hotel. There was a call at 19:03. Why was the land line of the hotel used and not Bell’s cell? Someone seemed to have searched his room as it was in a mess. Who was this and what was he or she looking for? How is it possible that this intrusion not picked up by the hotel’s CCTV? How does one account for the fact that there is no blood at the spot where his body is found? Does this imply he was murdered somewhere else and the corpse deposited later at the spot at which it is found?

The tunnel of the costal road passes under a temple located at Pryadarshani Park. Bell initially wanted to demolish the temple but later agreed to relocate it at no cost to Swami Yogesh. Why does a Swami have “a pile of weapons in the corner—arrows, swords, maces, tridents, axes?” 

There are three critical persons working for Darius: “Super smart,” Niloufer Shroff, being groomed to take over the company;  the “ambitious” Ronnie Engineer, and Sunil Tandel, relatively junior, a “bright boy” who is Peter’s assistant. Was Niloufer having “a possible” affair with Bell? Ronnie wanted the tunnel to by-pass Swami Yogesh’s temple. When Bell did not agree why did Ronnie go out of his way to placate the Swami? Who is this Felix who is referred to in an argument between Darius and Bell whom the latter wants killed? Why is everyone so evasive about Arpin Industries, the company controlling the. construction site?

And where in all this does Faraz Davar fit in? He is Darius’s father-in-law and is the Chairman of Mehta and Sons. He has indifferent health and the reader keeps hearing that his life hangs by a thread. But his Parsi genes seem very strong and he continues to live under the care and protection of Zara, Darius’s wife. What role do they have to play in this entire saga?

In Chowdhury’s hands, the city of Bombay comes alive. Several locations, including Dharavi, are used effectively to create a sense of menace and danger. The dual nature of the city—the rich and the poor, the progressive and the traditional—are sharply defined. The city comes alive with Chowdhury’s descriptions which are keen, perceptive and authentic. Parsi customs and traditions are woven naturally into the fabric of the novel. Most of the plethora of characters, certainly the main protagonists, are sensitively and realistically portrayed. The pair of detectives are a perfect balance and complement each other in the performance of their task. Their emotional Anjoli brings much required humour to the book with her T-shirts with amusing slogans and her battles with her mercurial chef who is running the restaurant in her absence. The tension never flags and the Chowdhury dextrously, moves backward and forward in time, in a natural and seamless manner which adds to the complexity of the plot.

The novel is a gripping and delightful read. The loose ends are all eventually tied up…and Chowdhury keeps us guessing as to who the perpetrator is till the very end.