The Lost and Found

by Dr. Syed Ali Akbar Rizvi

Policy says hold it thirty days. He holds it ninety. Nobody has ever asked him why.

For thirty-one years, Moss Iqbal has kept what other people left behind at Chicago Union Station. A wedding ring in a potato chip bag. A child's inhaler. Four skeins of yarn for a baby who hadn't been born yet. Every object is logged in a hardbound ledger, held long past the point where anyone should reasonably keep it, on the chance that somebody comes back.

Because that is what Moss believes, and he has built a life on things wait. A thing put down is not a thing lost.

Then one August they send him an apprentice. Marisol is nineteen, she is from Little Village, and she does not want to be there. Inside a month she is better at the job than he is. Inside six she has asked him the one question he has spent twenty-eight years not answering.

Because under his desk is a duffel bag that has been there since 1998. It has never been in the logbook. His daughter left it there the day she walked out of his life, and he has never once opened it.

Now the railroad is closing the office. Everything on the shelves has to go somewhere. And a man who has spent three decades keeping other people's things safe has eight weeks to find out whether he was guarding them, or hiding behind them.

A novel about the things we can't keep and can't put down, told across one final year in a basement room where the lost things a ring that was never his to return, a letter written and never sent, a phone that rings at the same time every evening, and a man who comes every Thursday and never claims a thing.

For readers of A Man Called Ove, The Midnight Library, and The Keeper of Lost Things: a quiet, funny, devastating story about a father, a daughter, and a room where nothing is gone.

304 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 7, 2026

About the author

Dr. Syed Ali Akbar Rizvi is an academic, consultant, entrepreneur, and writer with extensive international experience across academia, business, and nonprofit initiatives. He holds a BSBA with a double major in Information Systems and Marketing from Drake University (USA). He later attended INSEAD’s Social Entrepreneurship Program and was awarded the prestigious Chevening Scholarship by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office to pursue a Master’s in Management (Entrepreneurship) at Durham University (UK), where he also completed his PhD in Management with a focus on Entrepreneurship and Family Firms.

Dr. Rizvi has worked in diverse professional environments across the United States, the United Kingdom, Dubai (UAE), and Pakistan, combining academic scholarship with practical leadership and consulting experience. He served as the Founding Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and Incubation (CELInc.) at the Sukkur Institute of Business Administration, where he also taught as a faculty member. In this role, he led strategic initiatives aimed at promoting entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic development. The center undertook a number of major projects in collaboration with the Federal Government of Pakistan, Provincial Governments, and international organizations including USAID, supporting entrepreneurial ecosystems and strengthening the regional economy.

In addition to his academic roles, Dr. Rizvi has been a visiting faculty member at several business schools in Pakistan and has spent many years advising entrepreneurs, companies, nonprofit organizations, and educational institutions on business models, financial planning, organizational strategy, and entrepreneurship development. He currently runs business ventures in Pakistan and the United Kingdom and continues to consult with businesses, property investors, and higher education institutions.

Fluent in English and Urdu, Dr. Rizvi writes on themes related to religion, history, spirituality, leadership, and contemporary social issues. His broader intellectual interests include history, military affairs, politics, and current affairs.
He is married and has a daughter. In his free time, he enjoys reading, writing, and swimming.

Reviews

[Kimberley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely delightful, thought provoking, and beautifully written. The Lost and Found is a philosophical musing of life, our place in it, and the order of things. I couldn’t put this book down. And like The Correspondent or Theo of Golden, The Lost and Found stays with you in a very special way, holding you in a literary embrace, with charm and poignancy and all the things it has made you think about that you had not thought to think before. This is a gem!

[Cindy Duncan · Rating 1 out of 5]

A waste of time

A book written in semi I sentences about a man and his Estranged daughter. You read the whole book because you need to know what the daughter left there, why, and if he will find her after a lifetime and what will happen. It has no ending.

[Darleen Heist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moss,63 years of age, has spent more than 20 years in charge of the Lost and Found department. He spent his life organizing the items people lost or left behind. Everything had its place and time, Rules were meant to be followed and he enforce that except for one bag. He receives notice that on 31st of the month his job is gone. Replaced by modernization and centralization, the computer has replaced him. He knows nothing else. He holds a bag his daughter left 17 years ago. To return it is a final piece for him to complete his job. To include that meeting would have helped to give this novel a better ending.

[Cynthia A · Rating 5 out of 5]

The keeper of lost thingd

The author did a great job of keeping me engaged as he told about Muse's delima about finding the truth. It was a page turner for sure

[Jennifer Angelo · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved this story

The Lost and Found is not just a description of the department at the train station; it is the human experience. These characters are with me now…