This is the third novel featuring Kamil Rahman and he is now an actual police officer having completed his training. This makes this novel more of a police procedural than the previous two but Kamil’s character remains unchanged. He is still a brilliant mix of insecurity and confidence and I loved the story of his experiences on his first investigation with the Met. As part of a murder investigation, he becomes the right hand man to the senior officer on the case which causes resentment among his colleagues. He also finds it hard being a constable after previously being an Inspector which leads him to take actions which are really not in keeping with his role.
The investigation takes us into the realms of AI where a company is developing new algorithms for a dating app that could actually be used for surveillance of the general population. The plot is extremely twisty with various possible motives for the murders. At the same time, there is a parallel murder story which takes place in 1913 and seen through a prologue and then letters. There is no apparent link between the two cases but they are both resolved at the end.
Kamil is still living with Anjoli who is running the restaurant where Kamil started out at the beginning of this series and is struggling with his developing attraction for his landlady. While Kamil is completely occupied by the murder at the construction site, Anjoli becomes engrossed in trying to find out the identity of the victims of the 1913 murder. The relationship between them is as spiky as ever and becomes even more complicated by the arrival of Kamil’s ex-fiancee from Pakistan.
This book doesn’t shrink from the less pleasant side of life in modern Britain. We see racism directed towards Kamil at work as well as anti-Semetism in the historical part of the plot. However, there is also are a lot of good things happening and people working together especially in the help given to the homeless.
I found this one a bit less compelling than the previous two, possibly due to the technicalities of the plot but also because I found Anjoli’s presence at times in the investigation a bit far-fetched. Now that Kamil is a fully fledged policeman, it was hard to see how her role could plausibly continue. However, it was still a great read and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys well plotted murder mysteries.
This could be read as a standalone however, if you haven’t read The Waiter or The Cook then I would definitely recommend them as great crime novels that stand out a bit from the many that are released each year.
I read this book as an ARC which I received from the publisher via netgalley in return for my honest review.
The Detective was released on April 13th by Harvill Secker