Ajay Chowdhury: The Cook, 9781787303157, Harvill Secker (Penguin Random House UK) trade paperback, publication date: May 5^th, 2022

 

Ajay Chowdhury’s upcoming “The Cook” was made available to me as a proof, courtesy of PRH UK, and turned out to be a much needed, wonderfully entertaining cozy crime read last week while nursing a cold.  I had read the first book “The Waiter” and took a shine to the main protagonist, Kamil Rahman, a former Kolkata police detective who had to make an involuntary new start in London as a waiter in an Indian/Pakistani restaurant while not giving up solving murders entirely  in his new hometown. 

“The Cook” is just as refreshing and entertaining. Set in the Indian/Pakistani community and restaurant around Brick Lane, Kamil has been promoted to cook in his friend Anjali’s restaurant and has a new romance lined up, Naila, who has come to London to study nursing from Lahore fleeing her suffocating family. When one of their mutual friends, Salma, is found strangled, the blame falls on her boyfriend but Kamil’s detective instincts tell him something does not quite match.  I will not say much more but if you are in the mood for a slightly different mystery with an unusual detective team, Chowdhury’s two books make a great read. “The Waiter “had a better, more plausible plot I thought but “The Cook” makes your mouth water when Kamil describes the Indian meals he is cooking and is an atmospheric description of Indian / Pakistani life around Brick Lane.