Vaseem Khan first saw an elephant lumbering down the middle of the road in 1997 when he arrived in India to work as a management consultant. It was the most unusual thing he had ever encountered and served as the inspiration behind his series of crime novels.
He returned to the UK in 2006 and now works at University College London for the Department of Security and Crime Science where he is astonished on a daily basis by the way modern science is being employed to tackle crime. Elephants are third on his list of passions, first and second being great literature and cricket, not always in that order.
The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra is a Mumbai-set mystery. Inspector Chopra inherits an elephant and an unsolved murder on his last day at work. You can buy the book here.
Vaseem Khan joins us today to share his five most influential books.

A children’s classic. Who would have thought a novel about rabbits could be full of adventure, intrigue and excitement? I read this book as a kid and was hooked on the story of Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig and the other rabbits, displaced from their warren, moving across the English countryside to find a new home. On their epic journey they encounter every conceivable danger, and then meet the ultimate rabbit foe: General Woundwort, surely one of the most villainous villains in children’s fiction. The novel also starts with one of the most poignant opening sentences I’ve read: “The primroses were over.” Buy the book here.
Tom McCarthy, Marlon James, Chigozie Obioma, Sunjeev Sahota, Anne Tyler and Hanya Yanagihara have been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015.
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