Edgware Road

Written By Linda Malek

Edgware Road by Yasmin Cordery-Khan

Reviewed by Linda
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Many thanks to @headofzeus for sending this over!

First thing’s first, a book with a London location in its title will definitely attract my attention. Fortunately, its contents kept me interested too and I think we’ve found a new talent in this debut author.

This story is unique as we meet starry-eyed Khalid Quraishi, an 18 year old from Karachi, sent to London’s Imperial College in the 80s to read Engineering. It soon becomes clear that the student life isn’t for him, the monthly allowance wired by his parents doesn’t match up with the upmarket London life that he becomes fixated on attaining. In a quest to make money fast, he begins working as a croupier at a casino off the Edgware Road where he becomes entangled with the rich and dangerous. Here begins a lifelong contract with the fruit machines and baccarat.

The book flicks from Khalid’s past to his daughter, Alia’s present as we discover that Khalid was found dead under very mysterious circumstances. The author builds the right level of suspense and gives us a good amount of background detail as she searches for the truth. With her mother no longer living in London, and Alia working as a lecturer at Oxford, she is confused and isolated without any family or real friends around her. Trying to reconnect with her roots, Alia visits her Dad’s family in Karachi whilst also scouring the newspapers around the time of his death for further clues.

The author simultaneously gives us a description of the political climate at the time which was informative but at times maybe a bit too much. This aside, I look forward to reading more from this author and hearing what you all think of the book when it’s out later this month. Ps. I think this would make for some great TV!

Linda Malek

I've always had the urge to set up a forum and voice my thoughts after each read, but never had the confidence to do so alone. 18 months ago, I got my fellow book-loving friends involved and formed The Candid Book Club! Aside from having an exponentially growing to-read pile and deteriorating shortsightedness, we've been lucky to have been invited to publisher events and have attended several talks with our favourite authors (Thank you and long may they continue!) To take a break from the pressures of PhD Chemistry, Jess and I exchanged books all the time and in my youth, I was that kid with the first editions of Harry Potter having already read Gulliver’s travels and some Charles Dickens. At work, my desk is a library and luckily for me I sit next to another bookworm Jack who entertains all the photo-taking. I'm suffering from a chronic case of wanderlust (age-related crisis) so books which are set as far away from home as possible tend to float my boat: Middle East, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Asia...you name it. But if it's got anything to do with Egypt then I'm all over it. So you get the drift...I read all the time, everywhere (on the tube mostly), everyday, a book a week, and very quickly I'm onto the next! And then sometimes there is a book that stops me in my tracks, makes me want to swallow the pages whole, and have it next to me at all times, with some sentences staying with me forever: Shantaram by David Gregory Roberts, anything by Khaled Hosseini, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo (absolute gem of a woman), A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shuklaand and anything by Naguib Mahfouz.

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