The Literary Mirror

Bhola Rai is an unusual protagonist for a thriller — retired, methodical, in no hurry. Why write him that way?

Because urgency is usually a lie in real investigations, especially old ones. Rai isn't racing anyone. The only clock running is his own, and he knows it, which is part of why he can afford to be as thorough as he is.

The novel is light on twists compared to most of the genre. Was that a risk you weighed?

My editor weighed it more than I did, honestly. I wanted the pleasure of the book to be procedural — watching someone actually do the patient, unglamorous work of reopening a cold case — rather than the pleasure of being surprised every forty pages.

Without spoiling it, was the smaller ending always the plan?

From the first outline, yes. A book about the limits of one retired constable's authority against an entire system has to end with those limits intact. A bigger ending would have undercut the whole argument.