Vaseem Khan Books in Order

If you want cozy mysteries with heart: The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra → The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown → The Strange Disappearance of a Bollywood Star
If you like classic whodunits in a historical setting: Midnight at Malabar House → The Dying Day → The Lost Man of Bombay
If you want to sample his shorter work: Inspector Chopra and the Million-Dollar Motor Car → Last Victim of the Monsoon Express → The Lost Man of Dehra Dun
If you prefer standalones and collections: The Girl In Cell A → The Perfect Crime

Vaseem Khan writes crime novels that move between modern Mumbai and 1950s Bombay, following detectives who care as much about ordinary people as they do about solving clever puzzles.

He was born in 1973 in Newham in East London, the child of parents who had emigrated from Pakistan. Growing up in a working class neighbourhood, he read widely, loved cricket and dreamed early on of seeing his name on a book spine. He later studied accounting and finance at the London School of Economics, a practical choice that still left room for late night writing sessions.

As a teenager he wrote his first novel and was convinced it would change his life. It did not. Instead he spent roughly two decades producing manuscripts, sending them out to agents and collecting rejection letters, slowly learning how stories actually work.

In his early twenties he took a job in India with an eco hotel group, helping to plan and build environmentally friendly hotels around the country. Those ten years immersed him in the chaos and beauty of the subcontinent, from crowded city streets and monsoon rains to quiet hill stations. On his first day in Mumbai he watched an elephant lumber through traffic, a surreal image that stayed with him and later became the seed of his first series.

Khan returned to England in 2006 and joined the Department of Security and Crime Science at University College London, where he helps manage research projects that look at how technology and evidence can be used to fight crime. The job keeps him close to real world debates about policing, forensics and future crime, material that quietly filters into his fiction. For years he wrote before work, on trains and late at night, fitting the novels around a full time career.

His breakthrough came in 2015 with The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, the first of the Baby Ganesh Agency novels. The book introduces Ashwin Chopra, a recently retired Mumbai police inspector who inherits both a suspicious death and a baby elephant named Ganesha, then refuses to let either case go. Readers responded to the mix of humour, heartfelt characters and sharp observations about corruption and inequality, and the novel went on to be translated widely and recognised on several prize lists. The follow up, The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown, later won a Shamus Award, and the series has grown to include full length mysteries and novellas such as Murder at the Grand Raj Palace, Bad Day at the Vulture Club and Last Victim of the Monsoon Express.

In 2020 he launched a second strand of work with Midnight at Malabar House, set in newly independent India and introducing Persis Wadia, the country's first female police detective. These Malabar House novels, including The Dying Day, The Lost Man of Bombay, Death of a Lesser God, City of Destruction and The Edge of Darkness, use classic mystery setups to explore partition, political violence and the complicated legacies of empire. Midnight at Malabar House won the Crime Writers' Association Historical Dagger, confirming that his shift into historical crime had struck a chord.

Khan also enjoys working outside his two main series. He has co-edited the global short story collection The Perfect Crime, written the standalone psychological thriller The Girl In Cell A set in small town America, and created a new series for the James Bond universe beginning with Quantum of Menace. Alongside the books he co-hosts the Red Hot Chilli Writers podcast and, in 2023, became chair of the Crime Writers' Association, the first person of colour to hold that role.

Today he lives in London and still splits his time between the university and the page. Across his work you will find warm, stubborn investigators, intricate plots, and a vivid sense of place that draws heavily on the decade he spent living in India. Whether you start with a baby elephant in modern Mumbai or a young woman detective in 1950s Bombay, his stories aim to be entertaining first and thoughtful a close second.