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Edgware Road
A wide-ranging and affecting debut novel about family and identity, from an award-winning historian.
1981. Khalid Quraishi is one of the lucky ones. He works nights in the glitzy West End, and comes home every morning to his beautiful wife and daughter. He's a world away from Karachi and the family he left behind.
But Khalid likes to gamble, and he likes to win. Twenty pounds on the fruit machine, fifty on a sure-thing horse, a thousand on an investment that seems certain to pay out. Now he's been offered a huge opportunity, a chance to get in early with a new bank, and it looks like he'll finally have his big win.
2003. Alia Quraishi doesn't really remember her dad. After her parents' divorce she hardly saw him, and her mum refuses to talk about her charming ex-husband. So, when he died in what the police wrote off as a sad accident, Alia had no reason to believe there was more going on.
Now almost twenty years have passed and she's tired of only understanding half of who she is. Her dad's death alone and miles from his west London stomping ground doesn't add up with the man she knew. If she's going to find out the truth about her father – and learn about the other half of herself – Alia is going to have to visit his home, a place she's never been, and connect with a family that feel more like strangers.
1981. Khalid Quraishi is one of the lucky ones. He works nights in the glitzy West End, and comes home every morning to his beautiful wife and daughter. He's a world away from Karachi and the family he left behind.
But Khalid likes to gamble, and he likes to win. Twenty pounds on the fruit machine, fifty on a sure-thing horse, a thousand on an investment that seems certain to pay out. Now he's been offered a huge opportunity, a chance to get in early with a new bank, and it looks like he'll finally have his big win.
2003. Alia Quraishi doesn't really remember her dad. After her parents' divorce she hardly saw him, and her mum refuses to talk about her charming ex-husband. So, when he died in what the police wrote off as a sad accident, Alia had no reason to believe there was more going on.
Now almost twenty years have passed and she's tired of only understanding half of who she is. Her dad's death alone and miles from his west London stomping ground doesn't add up with the man she knew. If she's going to find out the truth about her father – and learn about the other half of herself – Alia is going to have to visit his home, a place she's never been, and connect with a family that feel more like strangers.
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First published March 1, 2022
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About the author
Yasmin Cordery Khan
4 books118 followersYasmin Cordery Khan is a British historian and novelist, and teaches at the University of Oxford. She is the author of the Great Partition, The Raj at War (also published in the US as India at War) Edgware Road and Overland. She has been long listed for prizes including the Orwell Prize, the Authors' Club of Great Britain First Novel Prize, the PEN Hesell-Tiltman and won the Gladstone Prize for history.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
February 7, 2022
4.5~5★
“Where do you find a lost father? In the mirror, in the sweep of an arched eyebrow, in the sheen of hair? In the echo of a phrase that comes in the night, passed on and learned.”
Alia Quraishi is eleven years old, waiting to meet her father at the Edgware Road tube station, which is near where he now lives. Her parents are separated and this is her first time making the trip by herself. She loses her only coin in the payphone when she tries to call Mum.
This is a complex story covering different time periods and different characters, not all of whom interact directly but who are connected in some way to the dubious financial transactions we eventually learn about.
Alia’s father is Khalid, whom we meet first as a young man, a popular croupier in London’s Playboy Club. There are real people populating the story, and although I wasn’t familiar with the scandals, even I recognise some of the names, including Hugh Hefner, of course. That always makes something like this more interesting. The author is a highly regarded historian, and it’s obvious from this that she is very much at home writing about these people, places, and times.
Khalid can’t resist gambling himself, although not in the big clubs, which he couldn’t afford. He bets on the race and stops in at a local pub with a mate.
“The two of them worked like factory workers, hands fluttering on the square buttons, feeding back the coins when they tumbled down. The tangy smell of copper and nickel rose up from the money, held by a thousand hands. . . .
Khalid liked Irish pubs in any case. You could usually find someone to stand you a drink in O’Connors, or in the Rose of Tralee further down the road. In Khalid’s view, Sufism and Catholicism had a lot in common. Imran knew his views on the subject and was mostly in agreement. The Irish and the Asians, their own little people in a sea of imperial bastards.”
I liked Khalid’s comparison of the Irish Catholics and Sufis as “their own little people”. An Irish pub seems an odd place for him to feel at home, but then he’s an odd sort of fellow.
He meets and loves his wife, loves his daughter, gets mixed up in some dodgy dealings which involve Adnan Kashoggi, the wealthy Saudi businessman, and finds himself in some scary situations. Khalid’s body is found a long way from his home, and the police decide he accidentally drowned. We obviously have our suspicions because we know the sort of people he was mixing with.
The story moves back and forth so that we see young Khalid and wife Suzie and little Alia enjoying life as a family, although they are struggling because of his gambling.
We also see Alia as a university student and later lecturer, living with a flatmate and becoming more interested in her background. She wants to know who she is, who her father was, how he came to London, and how he died.
When she travels to Karachi, she is reminded of her childhood. Her cousin Nadima and family used to live in London, and Alia was like another daughter to them. Nadima picks her up at the airport.
“The sounds on the radio conveyed the rhythm of something familiar, something comforting. The sound of her father on the telephone. “
They and her grandmother are delighted to see her again. There are countless relatives at the party for her. She represents something.
“To the rest, she was Khalid’s girl. No one here was interested in her as an individual – not in her PhD research, or her next deadline, or her daily worries. They didn’t want to listen to her account of the journey. Of course, they needed to know that she was healthy and well clothed. But they cared about her because she was part of their line, their tribe, and she was the living link to the man who was her father, who they loved, and for this reason they would do anything for her and in this there was something unconditional and anonymous. She could have been anyone, but because she was his, she mattered. She was their lost property.”
Jumping back to Khalid’s time, we meet a British MP, who has been warned by a constituent’s letter that there is some funny business going on with BCCI, a big bank. He has his own storyline which is where we see the history and the politics and the scandal of the day.
That’s all interesting, but it was the characters of Khalid and Alia I enjoyed most, and the contrast between their generations and the cultures and how people mix – or not.
It’s an ambitious book, well-written and thoughtful, and I think it’s pretty much achieved its ambitions. There is certainly more to it than I expected. I look forward to seeing how this is received by proper critics.
One disadvantage of reading a digital preview on an e-reader or Kindle is that the formatting demarcations and spacings are not always as obvious as they are on a printed page or PDF file. The author does introduce some sections with years, which is helpful.
Thanks to NetGalley and Head of Zeus/Apollo for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted.
p.s. There's an interesting article here about Hugh Hefner, Playboy, and London. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41427649
“Where do you find a lost father? In the mirror, in the sweep of an arched eyebrow, in the sheen of hair? In the echo of a phrase that comes in the night, passed on and learned.”
Alia Quraishi is eleven years old, waiting to meet her father at the Edgware Road tube station, which is near where he now lives. Her parents are separated and this is her first time making the trip by herself. She loses her only coin in the payphone when she tries to call Mum.
This is a complex story covering different time periods and different characters, not all of whom interact directly but who are connected in some way to the dubious financial transactions we eventually learn about.
Alia’s father is Khalid, whom we meet first as a young man, a popular croupier in London’s Playboy Club. There are real people populating the story, and although I wasn’t familiar with the scandals, even I recognise some of the names, including Hugh Hefner, of course. That always makes something like this more interesting. The author is a highly regarded historian, and it’s obvious from this that she is very much at home writing about these people, places, and times.
Khalid can’t resist gambling himself, although not in the big clubs, which he couldn’t afford. He bets on the race and stops in at a local pub with a mate.
“The two of them worked like factory workers, hands fluttering on the square buttons, feeding back the coins when they tumbled down. The tangy smell of copper and nickel rose up from the money, held by a thousand hands. . . .
Khalid liked Irish pubs in any case. You could usually find someone to stand you a drink in O’Connors, or in the Rose of Tralee further down the road. In Khalid’s view, Sufism and Catholicism had a lot in common. Imran knew his views on the subject and was mostly in agreement. The Irish and the Asians, their own little people in a sea of imperial bastards.”
I liked Khalid’s comparison of the Irish Catholics and Sufis as “their own little people”. An Irish pub seems an odd place for him to feel at home, but then he’s an odd sort of fellow.
He meets and loves his wife, loves his daughter, gets mixed up in some dodgy dealings which involve Adnan Kashoggi, the wealthy Saudi businessman, and finds himself in some scary situations. Khalid’s body is found a long way from his home, and the police decide he accidentally drowned. We obviously have our suspicions because we know the sort of people he was mixing with.
The story moves back and forth so that we see young Khalid and wife Suzie and little Alia enjoying life as a family, although they are struggling because of his gambling.
We also see Alia as a university student and later lecturer, living with a flatmate and becoming more interested in her background. She wants to know who she is, who her father was, how he came to London, and how he died.
When she travels to Karachi, she is reminded of her childhood. Her cousin Nadima and family used to live in London, and Alia was like another daughter to them. Nadima picks her up at the airport.
“The sounds on the radio conveyed the rhythm of something familiar, something comforting. The sound of her father on the telephone. “
They and her grandmother are delighted to see her again. There are countless relatives at the party for her. She represents something.
“To the rest, she was Khalid’s girl. No one here was interested in her as an individual – not in her PhD research, or her next deadline, or her daily worries. They didn’t want to listen to her account of the journey. Of course, they needed to know that she was healthy and well clothed. But they cared about her because she was part of their line, their tribe, and she was the living link to the man who was her father, who they loved, and for this reason they would do anything for her and in this there was something unconditional and anonymous. She could have been anyone, but because she was his, she mattered. She was their lost property.”
Jumping back to Khalid’s time, we meet a British MP, who has been warned by a constituent’s letter that there is some funny business going on with BCCI, a big bank. He has his own storyline which is where we see the history and the politics and the scandal of the day.
That’s all interesting, but it was the characters of Khalid and Alia I enjoyed most, and the contrast between their generations and the cultures and how people mix – or not.
It’s an ambitious book, well-written and thoughtful, and I think it’s pretty much achieved its ambitions. There is certainly more to it than I expected. I look forward to seeing how this is received by proper critics.
One disadvantage of reading a digital preview on an e-reader or Kindle is that the formatting demarcations and spacings are not always as obvious as they are on a printed page or PDF file. The author does introduce some sections with years, which is helpful.
Thanks to NetGalley and Head of Zeus/Apollo for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted.
p.s. There's an interesting article here about Hugh Hefner, Playboy, and London. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41427649
June 4, 2022
Long-ago scandals…
In 1987, Alia Quraishi was a young girl when her dad went missing. A few weeks later his body was found, and Alia was told he had drowned. Now in 2003, Alia wants to know more. What was Khalid doing in Portsmouth, far from his usual London haunts, and why did he drown? Why didn’t he turn up the last time he was due to meet her in Edgware Road tube station? As a mixed-race child brought up entirely by her white mother after Khalid’s death, Alia also finds herself wanting to know more about her Pakistani heritage. Alia’s quest to learn more about the father she barely remembers will take her both to Pakistan and back into the past, to some of the murky dealings in the world of high finance in which Khalid seems to have become involved.
This starts out excellently. It is split between Alia’s story in 2003 and Khalid’s back in the 1980s, and Khan draws both characters beautifully. She shows Alia’s position, as a mixed-race person brought up with little contact with half of her heritage, very realistically and happily undramatically. Alia has had a good education and while her academic career isn’t on as solid a footing as she would like, she’s doing fine. By taking this essentially British woman to Pakistan, Khan shows the differences in the two cultures and in the status of women within both societies – middle-class women, in both cases – and she doesn’t set out to criticise either culture or to show one as better than the other. Instead she shows that the women are inclined to favour the culture of their upbringing, not surprisingly. Alia would find it hard to give up her British liberal attitudes, but she can see that the seemingly more restricted lifestyle of her Pakistani cousins has advantages too.
Khalid’s story is also done very well in the early part of the book. He is a croupier in Hefner’s Playboy casino in London just at the time when women were beginning to object to the idea of waitresses being made to dress as semi-naked bunnies for the titillation of male customers. Rumours are also swirling that the Playboy Club and its manager, Victor Lowndes, are in trouble over dodgy financial dealings, and the club is about to have its gaming licence revoked. Khalid is himself a gambler and this has led to the breakdown of his marriage to Alia’s mum. Now he gets involved with Adnan Khashoggi and through him gets sucked into the dodgy dealings of the BCCI just before the scandal that brought the bank down.
If Hefner, Lowndes, Khashoggi and BCCI are meaningless terms to you, then you may well be lost, not to mention bored, by this book. I lived through these various scandals but to be honest didn’t even find them all that interesting at the time. And it’s here that the book lost me. From being an interesting study of character and culture, it gets bogged down in ‘80s references, and Khan’s plot, regarding the death of Khalid, isn’t strong enough to fight its way through. The real problem, I felt, is that people who remember these scandals would, like me, feel that Khan added nothing to what came out in the interminable investigations that followed them; while for newcomers, I feel Khan doesn’t explain clearly enough, or interestingly enough, what they were all about or the impact that they had. She tells us that the bank’s failure would have affected investors, but doesn’t show us. Equally she tells us that feminists were making a stand about Playboy and the sexualisation of women in the workplace, but doesn’t show us. And I’m afraid the simple facts that rich men often get rich by illegal means, and that casinos and banks are great places for all kinds of dodgy stuff to go on, isn’t enough to surprise or thrill. The book needs a stronger plot with an added thriller element or, conversely, a simpler one, that concentrates on Alia’s journey of self-discovery rather than losing its way in some rather tedious ancient scandals.
I’m afraid I gave in around the 60% mark and started brutally skimming. I was interested enough to know what had happened to Khalid to stick with it, but it all seemed like a real anti-climax in the end. I enjoyed Khan’s writing style and characterisation a lot and would read something else by her, but I hope next time she’ll get a better balance between research, background and story-telling. This is a debut novel and shows real promise but, as I say so often, especially when it comes to debut authors, why wasn’t the editor giving her better guidance?
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Head of Zeus via NetGalley.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
In 1987, Alia Quraishi was a young girl when her dad went missing. A few weeks later his body was found, and Alia was told he had drowned. Now in 2003, Alia wants to know more. What was Khalid doing in Portsmouth, far from his usual London haunts, and why did he drown? Why didn’t he turn up the last time he was due to meet her in Edgware Road tube station? As a mixed-race child brought up entirely by her white mother after Khalid’s death, Alia also finds herself wanting to know more about her Pakistani heritage. Alia’s quest to learn more about the father she barely remembers will take her both to Pakistan and back into the past, to some of the murky dealings in the world of high finance in which Khalid seems to have become involved.
This starts out excellently. It is split between Alia’s story in 2003 and Khalid’s back in the 1980s, and Khan draws both characters beautifully. She shows Alia’s position, as a mixed-race person brought up with little contact with half of her heritage, very realistically and happily undramatically. Alia has had a good education and while her academic career isn’t on as solid a footing as she would like, she’s doing fine. By taking this essentially British woman to Pakistan, Khan shows the differences in the two cultures and in the status of women within both societies – middle-class women, in both cases – and she doesn’t set out to criticise either culture or to show one as better than the other. Instead she shows that the women are inclined to favour the culture of their upbringing, not surprisingly. Alia would find it hard to give up her British liberal attitudes, but she can see that the seemingly more restricted lifestyle of her Pakistani cousins has advantages too.
Khalid’s story is also done very well in the early part of the book. He is a croupier in Hefner’s Playboy casino in London just at the time when women were beginning to object to the idea of waitresses being made to dress as semi-naked bunnies for the titillation of male customers. Rumours are also swirling that the Playboy Club and its manager, Victor Lowndes, are in trouble over dodgy financial dealings, and the club is about to have its gaming licence revoked. Khalid is himself a gambler and this has led to the breakdown of his marriage to Alia’s mum. Now he gets involved with Adnan Khashoggi and through him gets sucked into the dodgy dealings of the BCCI just before the scandal that brought the bank down.
If Hefner, Lowndes, Khashoggi and BCCI are meaningless terms to you, then you may well be lost, not to mention bored, by this book. I lived through these various scandals but to be honest didn’t even find them all that interesting at the time. And it’s here that the book lost me. From being an interesting study of character and culture, it gets bogged down in ‘80s references, and Khan’s plot, regarding the death of Khalid, isn’t strong enough to fight its way through. The real problem, I felt, is that people who remember these scandals would, like me, feel that Khan added nothing to what came out in the interminable investigations that followed them; while for newcomers, I feel Khan doesn’t explain clearly enough, or interestingly enough, what they were all about or the impact that they had. She tells us that the bank’s failure would have affected investors, but doesn’t show us. Equally she tells us that feminists were making a stand about Playboy and the sexualisation of women in the workplace, but doesn’t show us. And I’m afraid the simple facts that rich men often get rich by illegal means, and that casinos and banks are great places for all kinds of dodgy stuff to go on, isn’t enough to surprise or thrill. The book needs a stronger plot with an added thriller element or, conversely, a simpler one, that concentrates on Alia’s journey of self-discovery rather than losing its way in some rather tedious ancient scandals.
I’m afraid I gave in around the 60% mark and started brutally skimming. I was interested enough to know what had happened to Khalid to stick with it, but it all seemed like a real anti-climax in the end. I enjoyed Khan’s writing style and characterisation a lot and would read something else by her, but I hope next time she’ll get a better balance between research, background and story-telling. This is a debut novel and shows real promise but, as I say so often, especially when it comes to debut authors, why wasn’t the editor giving her better guidance?
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Head of Zeus via NetGalley.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
April 24, 2022
I really liked Khalid’s story until the part about the bank. I guess it was a way for Alia in the present to investigate her dad but I found it a bit boring and confusing.
May 11, 2022
Our story begins in 1981 with Khalid Quraishi, a man who considers himself lucky in more ways than one. He has a beautiful wife and daughter, and a job he loves rubbing shoulders with the high and mighty in the glitzy Playboy casino in London's West End. It's a world away from his upbringing in Karachi, and he sees bright things ahead for him and his family. But Khalid is also a gambler, and his compulsion to play the odds in pursuit of that tantalising big win leads him into trouble.
1987 finds him with a broken marriage and desperate to recapture his dreams. When he is offered the chance of a lifetime to get involved with a business deal involving the creation of a new bank, he is sure that this will be the big break he needs. But appearances can be deceptive and this time the gamble involves some very dodgy business partners.
In 2003, Khalid's daughter Alia has only hazy memories of her father, as she saw little of him after her parents' divorce, beyond infrequent meetings at Underground stations around London. When he was found dead in 1987, after failing to turn up to one of their father-daughter Tube meetings, the police put his death down to an accident - although the fact that his body was dragged from the Solent was rather odd for a man who lived in the Edgware Road. This loss has always left Alia feeling that she knows little about the Pakistani half of her heritage, and how this impacts her own sense of identity. The time has come for her to find out what sort of man Khalid was and why he ended his days in a watery grave...
This is a book full of delicious surprises! It starts with the slow-burn of a domestic drama of a family torn apart by one man's ambition and inability to control his gambling addiction, and then heads off into a glorious twisty and expansive mystery thriller that delves into corruption, ineptitude, and very dark deeds.
Although the novel begins way back in 1981, the story primarily consists of two timelines - 1987, with Khalid's tale, and a parallel thread from a new MP in the House of Commons, Mark Denby; and 2003 when Alia is compelled to find out more about her father. The timelines swap back and forth building layer upon layer, until we begin to see the truth about Khalid's foolish naivety, and how he gets himself mired in underhand deals on a global scale through a chance meeting with Saudi businessman and arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.
Alia's detective work drives the story, ratcheting up the tension and pulling you in as she tracks down the clues, confronts the complicit, and reels from the impact of what she finds out. The significant emotional impact of what she discovers is really interesting, affecting not only her view of her father, but also the way she sees herself and what she is due. I also thoroughly enjoyed how Mark Denby is used as a story device to shed light on the truly shocking scale of the corruption Khalid unwittingly becomes involved in, and adds a very cleverly worked element of tangible menace and very believable conspiracy to the piece.
The scale of this novel is immense in the way it brings in themes of identity; the driving ambition of immigrants desperate to leave their old lives behind, and yet tied to their heritage; the complexities of family dynamics; and a whole raft of political and societal issues. I was especially struck by the way Cordery Khan does such an impressive job conjuring the perfect feeling of time and place for every single part of this truly stunning debut. It's not just that she takes us from London to Pakistan and back again and across the different timelines so well, but the way she brings the complicated and contradictory sides of the late 1980s alive in these pages so authentically, recreating the brashness, the clash of cultures, the tense political atmosphere under Thatcher, the endemic racism and sexism yet to be addressed, while at the same time blending real and fictional characters, and pervading this all with the unmistakable sense that change is coming. As someone old enough to remember all this first hand, I am in awe!
This is a book that easily makes it onto the pile of my books of the year. Definitely one you do not want to miss!
1987 finds him with a broken marriage and desperate to recapture his dreams. When he is offered the chance of a lifetime to get involved with a business deal involving the creation of a new bank, he is sure that this will be the big break he needs. But appearances can be deceptive and this time the gamble involves some very dodgy business partners.
In 2003, Khalid's daughter Alia has only hazy memories of her father, as she saw little of him after her parents' divorce, beyond infrequent meetings at Underground stations around London. When he was found dead in 1987, after failing to turn up to one of their father-daughter Tube meetings, the police put his death down to an accident - although the fact that his body was dragged from the Solent was rather odd for a man who lived in the Edgware Road. This loss has always left Alia feeling that she knows little about the Pakistani half of her heritage, and how this impacts her own sense of identity. The time has come for her to find out what sort of man Khalid was and why he ended his days in a watery grave...
This is a book full of delicious surprises! It starts with the slow-burn of a domestic drama of a family torn apart by one man's ambition and inability to control his gambling addiction, and then heads off into a glorious twisty and expansive mystery thriller that delves into corruption, ineptitude, and very dark deeds.
Although the novel begins way back in 1981, the story primarily consists of two timelines - 1987, with Khalid's tale, and a parallel thread from a new MP in the House of Commons, Mark Denby; and 2003 when Alia is compelled to find out more about her father. The timelines swap back and forth building layer upon layer, until we begin to see the truth about Khalid's foolish naivety, and how he gets himself mired in underhand deals on a global scale through a chance meeting with Saudi businessman and arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.
Alia's detective work drives the story, ratcheting up the tension and pulling you in as she tracks down the clues, confronts the complicit, and reels from the impact of what she finds out. The significant emotional impact of what she discovers is really interesting, affecting not only her view of her father, but also the way she sees herself and what she is due. I also thoroughly enjoyed how Mark Denby is used as a story device to shed light on the truly shocking scale of the corruption Khalid unwittingly becomes involved in, and adds a very cleverly worked element of tangible menace and very believable conspiracy to the piece.
The scale of this novel is immense in the way it brings in themes of identity; the driving ambition of immigrants desperate to leave their old lives behind, and yet tied to their heritage; the complexities of family dynamics; and a whole raft of political and societal issues. I was especially struck by the way Cordery Khan does such an impressive job conjuring the perfect feeling of time and place for every single part of this truly stunning debut. It's not just that she takes us from London to Pakistan and back again and across the different timelines so well, but the way she brings the complicated and contradictory sides of the late 1980s alive in these pages so authentically, recreating the brashness, the clash of cultures, the tense political atmosphere under Thatcher, the endemic racism and sexism yet to be addressed, while at the same time blending real and fictional characters, and pervading this all with the unmistakable sense that change is coming. As someone old enough to remember all this first hand, I am in awe!
This is a book that easily makes it onto the pile of my books of the year. Definitely one you do not want to miss!
December 5, 2022
What a great story! After starting and failing to finish a few books lately I was so glad to read something that really gripped me, and that I really cared about finishing.
In 1987, 11 year old Alia Quraishi is waiting at Edgeware Road tube station for her unreliable father to meet her for a contact visit. But Khalid never arrives, and Alia spends the rest of this gripping novel working out the complex reasons why.
Her investigations take her from her home in Oxford, across the world to Pakistan and Goa, in search of Khalid's family and friends, whom she hopes might help her make sense of his disappearance and subsequent death. As she does so, she grapples with her own cultural identity, and how the absence of her father has affected her. Each location is vividly drawn, and this is a novel with a strong sense of place, but even more engrossing is the skillful way the characters are brought to life.
The reader immediately supports little Alia as she waits anxiously for her father, and loses her last 10p in the phone box. Later we root for her as she digs deeper into her past. Khalid is a complex character; he's a gambler in every sense, but such care is taken in building his inner life that we understand why he makes the choices he does. More minor players are also given heart and soul, and are so sympathetically drawn. Even the politician in the novel is written with sympathy!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this intriguing, transporting and moving story, which gave me an insight both into shady financial dealings and how the absence of a parent can be as strong an influence as their presence.
I was sent a review copy of this book by LoveReading in return for an honest review.
In 1987, 11 year old Alia Quraishi is waiting at Edgeware Road tube station for her unreliable father to meet her for a contact visit. But Khalid never arrives, and Alia spends the rest of this gripping novel working out the complex reasons why.
Her investigations take her from her home in Oxford, across the world to Pakistan and Goa, in search of Khalid's family and friends, whom she hopes might help her make sense of his disappearance and subsequent death. As she does so, she grapples with her own cultural identity, and how the absence of her father has affected her. Each location is vividly drawn, and this is a novel with a strong sense of place, but even more engrossing is the skillful way the characters are brought to life.
The reader immediately supports little Alia as she waits anxiously for her father, and loses her last 10p in the phone box. Later we root for her as she digs deeper into her past. Khalid is a complex character; he's a gambler in every sense, but such care is taken in building his inner life that we understand why he makes the choices he does. More minor players are also given heart and soul, and are so sympathetically drawn. Even the politician in the novel is written with sympathy!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this intriguing, transporting and moving story, which gave me an insight both into shady financial dealings and how the absence of a parent can be as strong an influence as their presence.
I was sent a review copy of this book by LoveReading in return for an honest review.
March 15, 2022
This book is dual timeline, in one we follow the events that unfold as Alia waits at Edgware tube station for her father, Khalid, only he never shows and his body is later discovered by the police in what they describe to be an accidental drowning. In the other timeline we get to see Khalid as he falls in love and marries his wife, Suzie, and we meet little baby Alia, we learn about her father’s gambling problem and his involvement in some not so legal deals with people you would not want to be alone in a dark alley with. We see Alia at college as she tries to learn what happened to her dad, who he really was, and how her father even ended up in the UK to begin with(her father originated from Pakistan).
This story is filled with real life characters and events which made it all the more fun to read, this is one that grips you from the start as you become connected with the characters and find yourself wanting to understand what happened to Khalid. This is a very cleverly written book about corruption, migration and privilege. well worth a read.
Thank you Head of Zeus for sending me a proof and having me on the blog tour.
This story is filled with real life characters and events which made it all the more fun to read, this is one that grips you from the start as you become connected with the characters and find yourself wanting to understand what happened to Khalid. This is a very cleverly written book about corruption, migration and privilege. well worth a read.
Thank you Head of Zeus for sending me a proof and having me on the blog tour.
April 2, 2022
3.75*
Much of the novel is set around Edgware Road, top of Park Lane and going West. There is also a trip to Karachi and some of the novel is set in Oxford, which mixes it up a little. The story is set partly in the 1980s and moves on into the early 2000s. The author manages the timelines terrifically well and captures the feel both of time and place. Back in the 1980s, there is mention of Wimpy’s and one of the characters drives a Datsun (remember those?), and she slides in other ephemera that set the novel firmly in the era. She inserts familiar people like Adnan Kashoggi (arms dealer) and Victor Lownes (Mr Bunny Club / Playboy Enterprises), and even Hugh Hefner drops in. The demise of the BCCI Bank, and the money laundering at its heart, also features and feels like a precursor to what is going on in oligarch-land today. The story will particularly appeal to readers who are familiar with the period.
1980s. Khalid Quraishi has landed in London from Pakistan and has a daughter Alia with Suzie. He has a deep seated gambling issue and has to hustle to keep his life on the straight and narrow. It works on occasion but his desire to live the good, ritzy life is overpowering, and he manages his life accordingly. It does not, however, predispose him to being a particularly interactive and responsible family man.
Going into the 2000s, the novel picks up on his daughter Alia’s story. She is in Oxford teaching English on a short term contract at the university. Her father simply disappeared from her life when she was quite young, and then subsequently his body washed up in the sea. She has a sense that he was perhaps murdered, given his flighty lifestyle and his desire to improve his lot; discovering the truth of his demise very much becomes her quest. She needs to understand why he didn’t make the rendezvous with her at the tube station of the title and he then never contacted her again. We know why early on.
The writer is hugely talented and really takes her readers with her. The trajectory of the narrative is a good one, yet I feel there are some weaknesses. The elements that make up this story seem a little boxy – there is indeed an elision and juxtaposition but the connecting stories sometimes sit together just a little uneasily. It feels like she might have chosen the elements she wanted to include in her novel, right at the outset, and then determinedly strove to feed them in, even though the narrative perhaps was organically finding a life of its own and heading elsewhere. For example, politician Mark Denby slides in, but he doesn’t feel like an overly helpful or interesting addition to the narrative. The fate of BCCI plays a reasonably important part and given the weight accorded to the dark shenanigans of the bank, it doesn’t to my mind significantly add to the story. I just so wanted the author to flesh out her characters – they were sketched, with such consummate potential, that it seemed a shame not to capitalise on them.
This is a talented author, who has a strong writing style and I look forward to seeing where she goes next.
Much of the novel is set around Edgware Road, top of Park Lane and going West. There is also a trip to Karachi and some of the novel is set in Oxford, which mixes it up a little. The story is set partly in the 1980s and moves on into the early 2000s. The author manages the timelines terrifically well and captures the feel both of time and place. Back in the 1980s, there is mention of Wimpy’s and one of the characters drives a Datsun (remember those?), and she slides in other ephemera that set the novel firmly in the era. She inserts familiar people like Adnan Kashoggi (arms dealer) and Victor Lownes (Mr Bunny Club / Playboy Enterprises), and even Hugh Hefner drops in. The demise of the BCCI Bank, and the money laundering at its heart, also features and feels like a precursor to what is going on in oligarch-land today. The story will particularly appeal to readers who are familiar with the period.
1980s. Khalid Quraishi has landed in London from Pakistan and has a daughter Alia with Suzie. He has a deep seated gambling issue and has to hustle to keep his life on the straight and narrow. It works on occasion but his desire to live the good, ritzy life is overpowering, and he manages his life accordingly. It does not, however, predispose him to being a particularly interactive and responsible family man.
Going into the 2000s, the novel picks up on his daughter Alia’s story. She is in Oxford teaching English on a short term contract at the university. Her father simply disappeared from her life when she was quite young, and then subsequently his body washed up in the sea. She has a sense that he was perhaps murdered, given his flighty lifestyle and his desire to improve his lot; discovering the truth of his demise very much becomes her quest. She needs to understand why he didn’t make the rendezvous with her at the tube station of the title and he then never contacted her again. We know why early on.
The writer is hugely talented and really takes her readers with her. The trajectory of the narrative is a good one, yet I feel there are some weaknesses. The elements that make up this story seem a little boxy – there is indeed an elision and juxtaposition but the connecting stories sometimes sit together just a little uneasily. It feels like she might have chosen the elements she wanted to include in her novel, right at the outset, and then determinedly strove to feed them in, even though the narrative perhaps was organically finding a life of its own and heading elsewhere. For example, politician Mark Denby slides in, but he doesn’t feel like an overly helpful or interesting addition to the narrative. The fate of BCCI plays a reasonably important part and given the weight accorded to the dark shenanigans of the bank, it doesn’t to my mind significantly add to the story. I just so wanted the author to flesh out her characters – they were sketched, with such consummate potential, that it seemed a shame not to capitalise on them.
This is a talented author, who has a strong writing style and I look forward to seeing where she goes next.
March 9, 2022
Thank you so much to @headofzeus for sending me a copy of this and including me in the blog tour for this book!
I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. It is such a unique story set between 1980s and the present. Think family dramas with an underlying unresolved mystery.
At the start of the book, we meet Khalid, an 18 year old from Pakistan, who moves to London to study Engineering. He soon discovers that his student income is not sufficient to maintain the high profile life that he desires. In order to earn more money, he begins to work as a croupier at a casino near Edgware Road, however he becomes involved with much more than he bargained for.
The book flicks between Khalid’s past, and the present where his daughter, Alia, is trying to work out what happened to her father after his is found dead under mysterious circumstances. I loved this underlying sense of mystery and it kept me guessing throughout. Through her search for the truth about her father, Alia also begins to discover more about her family roots.
There were lots of topics discussed in this book that did sometimes leave me feel confused and feeling like I’d missed something. However, I did really enjoy the way it was written and I loved that all the characters’ stories were interconnected.
I think this will be a popular book that will be enjoyed by many!! I’m really looking forward to seeing what people think of it!🥰
I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. It is such a unique story set between 1980s and the present. Think family dramas with an underlying unresolved mystery.
At the start of the book, we meet Khalid, an 18 year old from Pakistan, who moves to London to study Engineering. He soon discovers that his student income is not sufficient to maintain the high profile life that he desires. In order to earn more money, he begins to work as a croupier at a casino near Edgware Road, however he becomes involved with much more than he bargained for.
The book flicks between Khalid’s past, and the present where his daughter, Alia, is trying to work out what happened to her father after his is found dead under mysterious circumstances. I loved this underlying sense of mystery and it kept me guessing throughout. Through her search for the truth about her father, Alia also begins to discover more about her family roots.
There were lots of topics discussed in this book that did sometimes leave me feel confused and feeling like I’d missed something. However, I did really enjoy the way it was written and I loved that all the characters’ stories were interconnected.
I think this will be a popular book that will be enjoyed by many!! I’m really looking forward to seeing what people think of it!🥰
March 23, 2024
What started out as an interesting novel of mixed race British-Pakistani identity just descended into lots of chaotic plot lines and darting back and forth between characters. If it stuck to the original story it would have been great but this was just too much.
July 13, 2023
I have a lot to say about this book. Written by historian Dr Yasmin Khan and set in 80’s and 90’s London, the descriptions and scenes felt nostalgic. Lots of themes; Thatcher’s Britain, the shadow of Partition, the class divide, life as a Muslim in Britain, the infamous BCCI banking scandal, and a complex bond between a father and his daughter.
Khalid with nawabs and princes in his bloodline, living in London and trying to make it in life, struggling through various work opportunities and then one day somehow ending up dead, his body washed up on the coast. His daughter Alia all grown up living in Cambridge, and trying to figure out her post-partition Pakistani family and heritage; and unearth the mystery of her father’s death. This takes her on a trip to Pakistan to be reunited with her father’s family. Alia’s complex heritage forms a significant part of the narrative.
It is so evident that this book is written by someone who knows and understands the complexities of multicultural and multiracial identity. I loved that Pakistan is written about with so much warmth and respect - a far cry from many other authors who write about ‘back home’ in scathing and spiteful terms, or to demean it in comparison to the Western world.
The book partly centres around the BCCI bank scandal, one of the biggest banking frauds in history. I didn’t know much about it before I started reading this but it made me want to go and research the historical events around the collapsed Middle Eastern bank. BCCI was shut down after a massive enquiry into its dealings, with fraud involving billions of dollars; money laundering, arms trafficking and other crimes.
It’s obvious that the author is not used to writing fiction - she brings a lot of factual history into the story, and at times it does feel like there is too much going on and some of the plot lines feel a bit incomplete.
Khalid the central character makes unsavoury lifestyle choices with drink, gambling and promiscuity which feel unsettling to read about at times. However the author also manages to portray the often difficult lives and jobs immigrants had, and the work choices they may have had to make when arriving in Britain in order to earn a living. At our book club discussion we talked about how drinking alcohol is a part of life for many affluent Muslims around the world, Pakistan being no exception. Khan honestly and accurately depicts social norms in some Muslim communities (however opposing to faith) instead of pretending vices don’t exist. This helps the story flow with a realism rather than come across contrived. What I like also is that the author doesn’t glamourise this lifestyle - she paints it with a brush of desperation - and greed/overindulgence at times.
An easy and pleasant read, I liked Yasmin Cordery-Khan’s writing style and will be looking at her other works.
Khalid with nawabs and princes in his bloodline, living in London and trying to make it in life, struggling through various work opportunities and then one day somehow ending up dead, his body washed up on the coast. His daughter Alia all grown up living in Cambridge, and trying to figure out her post-partition Pakistani family and heritage; and unearth the mystery of her father’s death. This takes her on a trip to Pakistan to be reunited with her father’s family. Alia’s complex heritage forms a significant part of the narrative.
It is so evident that this book is written by someone who knows and understands the complexities of multicultural and multiracial identity. I loved that Pakistan is written about with so much warmth and respect - a far cry from many other authors who write about ‘back home’ in scathing and spiteful terms, or to demean it in comparison to the Western world.
The book partly centres around the BCCI bank scandal, one of the biggest banking frauds in history. I didn’t know much about it before I started reading this but it made me want to go and research the historical events around the collapsed Middle Eastern bank. BCCI was shut down after a massive enquiry into its dealings, with fraud involving billions of dollars; money laundering, arms trafficking and other crimes.
It’s obvious that the author is not used to writing fiction - she brings a lot of factual history into the story, and at times it does feel like there is too much going on and some of the plot lines feel a bit incomplete.
Khalid the central character makes unsavoury lifestyle choices with drink, gambling and promiscuity which feel unsettling to read about at times. However the author also manages to portray the often difficult lives and jobs immigrants had, and the work choices they may have had to make when arriving in Britain in order to earn a living. At our book club discussion we talked about how drinking alcohol is a part of life for many affluent Muslims around the world, Pakistan being no exception. Khan honestly and accurately depicts social norms in some Muslim communities (however opposing to faith) instead of pretending vices don’t exist. This helps the story flow with a realism rather than come across contrived. What I like also is that the author doesn’t glamourise this lifestyle - she paints it with a brush of desperation - and greed/overindulgence at times.
An easy and pleasant read, I liked Yasmin Cordery-Khan’s writing style and will be looking at her other works.
April 19, 2023
Really enjoyed this book, the main characters were a lot more relatable than I might have thought from the themes of gambling and the immigration experience. Sad, funny, well written.
January 7, 2023
I feel like this book could have been much better. As others have said, it got extremely bloated due to the descriptive details. I also could not give a shite about Denby and his life, which made the book incredibly boring. Each time the book captured my attention, it pivoted to a Denby chapter, which was extremely frustrating. I bought this book on my final day in London, as a memento for a great trip. I am a Pakistani-American and thought I would be getting a glimpse of South Asian lifestyle in England, and at times I did, but ultimately this book was just quite underwhelming and flat out boring most of the time. It pains me to say it.
March 13, 2022
Newly arrived from Pakistan to study engineering at Imperial College, Khalid is drawn instead to glitz and glamour, working as a croupier at an exclusive London casino. It’s the 80s, his good looks and demeanor make him the right fit as his boss is keen to hire internationals who 'understand' the exclusive environment of London’s premier gaming rooms. Seduced by the power and wealth he encounters through his work, Khalid begins to desire the same. Entitlement set in as Khalid becomes entangled into murky dealings of BCCI bank. The rest as they say is history..
Yasmin Cordery Khan is a Historian of British India and Associate Professor of History at Oxford University, her earlier publications The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan (2007), and The Raj at War: A People’s History of India’s Second World War (2015). Edgware Road is her debut novel.
The story is set in the 80’s, Khalid and his friend Imran are living in Hammersmith, whilst working nights in Mayfair. Khalid is married to Suzie, an ex-model, Imran is married to Hasina a traditional Pakistani housewife. Unlike Imran, Khalid has great aspirations. He wants a large house in St Johns Wood, he wants his wife to shop in designer boutiques and that his only daughter attends the best private school. He is willing to work hard and take all risks to make these dreams a reality.
One evening he has a date with destiny, Mr K. (Adnan Kashoggi) walks into the casino with a sizeable entourage. On his departure he hands Khalid his business card. As Khalid learns more about Mr K.’s jet-set lifestyle he is intrigued. Khalid has a connection to BCCI bank and learns Mr.K needs an introduction.
In the meantime, Lord Denby a Labour Peer for Oxford East is tipped off about the shady dealings of BCCI bank and slowly unravels the questionable financial activities that connect an international bank founded by a Pakistan Businessman that has branches on British soil.
Chapters of the novel switch back between London and Oxford in the 80s and Oxford at the present time creating tension and suspense in the novel.
The story is narrated through the eyes of Alia, initially as a child and later as an academic at Oxford University. As the novel progresses and Alia reaches adulthood, her writings and observations become more succinct. At times, the novel feels autobiographical given the fact the author is an Associate Professor at Oxford.
‘Alia was a fixed-term lecturer in English literature, that meant she was not old enough or good enough or plain lucky enough to stay forever. The author of two good papers in highly regarded peer-reviewed journals, yet despite the gown, the letters after her name, the hours of life poured away in libraries, and the way she scrambled and clutched on to reach this supposed pinnacle, she could never imagine herself as a don. She didn’t find in Oxford and she couldn’t pretend to, and after a few months of trying she had decided to just treat it like an old job. This was her strategy for survival.’
The author writes well, the novel is engaging and a page turner especially when she narrates the BCCI bank story. Considering this is her first novel, I am pleasantly surprised that an acclaimed Historian could write such an engaging novel set during her own lifetime.
We learn about her fathers’s background in Karachi, as Yasmin travels there to meet her family and find answers about her father’s past. Throughout the story the reader senses there is a strong sense of Alia trying to regain her sense of self and identity through her father. The author manages to flesh out the character of the main protagonist well.
Khalid works hard and risks everything to give his daughter Alia the best he possibly can. The bond between father and daughter is a theme prevalent throughout the story. Khalid cuts an endearing figure.
The story will appeal to anyone who grew up in 80’s Britain and can recall the infamous BCCI scandal. Edgware Rd has the grit of 80s as well as the incoming capitalist policies of Thatcherite Britain...myths of London’s streets paved with gold.
Yasmin Cordery Khan is a Historian of British India and Associate Professor of History at Oxford University, her earlier publications The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan (2007), and The Raj at War: A People’s History of India’s Second World War (2015). Edgware Road is her debut novel.
The story is set in the 80’s, Khalid and his friend Imran are living in Hammersmith, whilst working nights in Mayfair. Khalid is married to Suzie, an ex-model, Imran is married to Hasina a traditional Pakistani housewife. Unlike Imran, Khalid has great aspirations. He wants a large house in St Johns Wood, he wants his wife to shop in designer boutiques and that his only daughter attends the best private school. He is willing to work hard and take all risks to make these dreams a reality.
One evening he has a date with destiny, Mr K. (Adnan Kashoggi) walks into the casino with a sizeable entourage. On his departure he hands Khalid his business card. As Khalid learns more about Mr K.’s jet-set lifestyle he is intrigued. Khalid has a connection to BCCI bank and learns Mr.K needs an introduction.
In the meantime, Lord Denby a Labour Peer for Oxford East is tipped off about the shady dealings of BCCI bank and slowly unravels the questionable financial activities that connect an international bank founded by a Pakistan Businessman that has branches on British soil.
Chapters of the novel switch back between London and Oxford in the 80s and Oxford at the present time creating tension and suspense in the novel.
The story is narrated through the eyes of Alia, initially as a child and later as an academic at Oxford University. As the novel progresses and Alia reaches adulthood, her writings and observations become more succinct. At times, the novel feels autobiographical given the fact the author is an Associate Professor at Oxford.
‘Alia was a fixed-term lecturer in English literature, that meant she was not old enough or good enough or plain lucky enough to stay forever. The author of two good papers in highly regarded peer-reviewed journals, yet despite the gown, the letters after her name, the hours of life poured away in libraries, and the way she scrambled and clutched on to reach this supposed pinnacle, she could never imagine herself as a don. She didn’t find in Oxford and she couldn’t pretend to, and after a few months of trying she had decided to just treat it like an old job. This was her strategy for survival.’
The author writes well, the novel is engaging and a page turner especially when she narrates the BCCI bank story. Considering this is her first novel, I am pleasantly surprised that an acclaimed Historian could write such an engaging novel set during her own lifetime.
We learn about her fathers’s background in Karachi, as Yasmin travels there to meet her family and find answers about her father’s past. Throughout the story the reader senses there is a strong sense of Alia trying to regain her sense of self and identity through her father. The author manages to flesh out the character of the main protagonist well.
Khalid works hard and risks everything to give his daughter Alia the best he possibly can. The bond between father and daughter is a theme prevalent throughout the story. Khalid cuts an endearing figure.
The story will appeal to anyone who grew up in 80’s Britain and can recall the infamous BCCI scandal. Edgware Rd has the grit of 80s as well as the incoming capitalist policies of Thatcherite Britain...myths of London’s streets paved with gold.
March 28, 2022
Firstly, I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I really enjoyed this book! It was a fresh story that gripped me from the very beginning.
The story itself is told in two timelines, one is set in the 1980s and follows one of the main characters Khalid Quraishi, who has a nearly perfect life, including a well-paid job and a happy family. Although he has it all he still wants more, the money, the grand life and the fame. This dream of his makes him play the odds, gamble and make deals with very dodgy people and businesses. At the same time, he is also fighting his own demons and addictions and all of that put together slowly destroys his perfect family and life.
The second timeline is set in 2003 and follows Alia Quraishi, Khalid’s daughter, as she is determined to find out what happened to her father in the late 80s when he just disappeared when she was just a little girl. Alia follows her faint memories of her father, which leads her to not only find out the destiny of her father but also allows her to explore her roots, her family relationships and herself.
I loved how the chapters intertwined from one timeline to another to keep the suspension and mystery of what happened to Khalid constantly going. The story itself is very beautifully written and at times with such detailed descriptions, I felt like I was in the book with those characters, looking at the world the way they saw it, living their life and feeling the emotions they felt. Honestly, not many books make me feel like I am in the story together with the characters, and that is one of the things that made this book really stand out for me.
I also really liked how history and life in London's West End and then the BCCI scandal was included in this book to keep that tension and mystery surrounding the life that Khalid lead throughout the book. I didn’t know much about the 80s in the UK and this book really taught me a lot about that time, especially how life was back then in London for the higher class and minority groups.
I must note that Alia’s character left a big impression on me because she grew so much as a character as the book progressed. As she learned more about her family, her father and the past, she found a sense of belonging and finally realised who she really is and for me, that is one of many strong messages that this book was trying to convey to the readers.
Although, because the book was so gripping and the build-up to the end was so good, I was a tad disappointed by the ending. I think I just expected some sort of wow factor or an exciting twist at the end…However, the ending was still very good and made me sit and think for a while about everything that happened in this book
Overall, it was a brilliant book, with beautifully crafted characters and a gripping storyline. I recommend this book, as it is a story that explores family, relationships, different generations, and much more…. A book that should be an addition to everyone’s 2022 TBR book pile.
I really enjoyed this book! It was a fresh story that gripped me from the very beginning.
The story itself is told in two timelines, one is set in the 1980s and follows one of the main characters Khalid Quraishi, who has a nearly perfect life, including a well-paid job and a happy family. Although he has it all he still wants more, the money, the grand life and the fame. This dream of his makes him play the odds, gamble and make deals with very dodgy people and businesses. At the same time, he is also fighting his own demons and addictions and all of that put together slowly destroys his perfect family and life.
The second timeline is set in 2003 and follows Alia Quraishi, Khalid’s daughter, as she is determined to find out what happened to her father in the late 80s when he just disappeared when she was just a little girl. Alia follows her faint memories of her father, which leads her to not only find out the destiny of her father but also allows her to explore her roots, her family relationships and herself.
I loved how the chapters intertwined from one timeline to another to keep the suspension and mystery of what happened to Khalid constantly going. The story itself is very beautifully written and at times with such detailed descriptions, I felt like I was in the book with those characters, looking at the world the way they saw it, living their life and feeling the emotions they felt. Honestly, not many books make me feel like I am in the story together with the characters, and that is one of the things that made this book really stand out for me.
I also really liked how history and life in London's West End and then the BCCI scandal was included in this book to keep that tension and mystery surrounding the life that Khalid lead throughout the book. I didn’t know much about the 80s in the UK and this book really taught me a lot about that time, especially how life was back then in London for the higher class and minority groups.
I must note that Alia’s character left a big impression on me because she grew so much as a character as the book progressed. As she learned more about her family, her father and the past, she found a sense of belonging and finally realised who she really is and for me, that is one of many strong messages that this book was trying to convey to the readers.
Although, because the book was so gripping and the build-up to the end was so good, I was a tad disappointed by the ending. I think I just expected some sort of wow factor or an exciting twist at the end…However, the ending was still very good and made me sit and think for a while about everything that happened in this book
Overall, it was a brilliant book, with beautifully crafted characters and a gripping storyline. I recommend this book, as it is a story that explores family, relationships, different generations, and much more…. A book that should be an addition to everyone’s 2022 TBR book pile.
April 7, 2025
'Edgware Road' was only published in March and is the first novel written by Oxford historian Yasmin Cordery Khan. It's a 'modern historical' novel, a term I may have just invented. It's historical because it's set in the past, but modern because it's a past that I remember and really doesn't seem that long ago to me. The story switches between the early 1980s and early 2000s. In the 1980s, Pakistani immigrant Khalid is working as a croupier at Hugh Hefner's Playboy Casino in Mayfair. It's all very glamorous and he makes a good living but his penchant for slot machines and the bookies sees him sliding into debt and losing his home, marriage and young daughter. A year or so later he is found dead, washed up on a south coast beach. His death is unexplained but presumed suicide. Twenty year later, his daughter, Alia, who is working a temporary job as an academic in Oxford, starts to look into his death and the circumstances surrounding it.
Khan is an historian and this comes through in the book. The history of the '80s is so well-researched. I found myself googling the BCCI bank, the arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, the Playboy casino and how it was shut down and learning quite a bit of history in the process.
Edgware Road is known for it's Arab population, shisha shops, Middle Eastern food and so on. It's built on the path of an old Roman road and leads from posh Mayfair to Edgware 10 miles away. It changes its name a few times and passes through some interesting areas along its way. I've now added it to my list of places in London that I want to explore in depth.
Khan is an historian and this comes through in the book. The history of the '80s is so well-researched. I found myself googling the BCCI bank, the arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, the Playboy casino and how it was shut down and learning quite a bit of history in the process.
Edgware Road is known for it's Arab population, shisha shops, Middle Eastern food and so on. It's built on the path of an old Roman road and leads from posh Mayfair to Edgware 10 miles away. It changes its name a few times and passes through some interesting areas along its way. I've now added it to my list of places in London that I want to explore in depth.
April 3, 2022
This is an interesting and engaging debut novel by Yasmin Cordery Khan. It is both a book about the importance of family relationships and knowing your place in those relationships; it also is an intricate puzzle.
In the 1980s, Khalid Quraishi, an immigrant from Karachi, lives in London with his wife and daughter, Alia. Their life is comfortable, with Khalid working as a croupier in London’s Playboy Club. He loves his family, but his addiction to gambling and the loss of his job lead to a breakdown in his family life. After several years, Khalid seems to be about to a move towards financial security, but seemingly mysterious and tragic circumstances put an end to this.
The timeframe of the novel moves between the 1980s and the early part of the 21st century, when Alia is a Junior Lecturer at Oxford. She does remember her father, but the last memory is of his non-appearance at Edgware Road station, where he had arranged to meet his ten-year-old daughter. Over the years, she wondered a little about her father, but then becomes determined to discover more about him, his life and the mystery surrounding his death.
The author dealt with the fluidity of the timescales very well, with various parts of the plot falling into place. Her characters were well rounded and plausible; I cared about what happened to them. Overall, I loved this book, and hope to read more by this author.
I would like to thank LoveReading for the opportunity to read and review this novel.
In the 1980s, Khalid Quraishi, an immigrant from Karachi, lives in London with his wife and daughter, Alia. Their life is comfortable, with Khalid working as a croupier in London’s Playboy Club. He loves his family, but his addiction to gambling and the loss of his job lead to a breakdown in his family life. After several years, Khalid seems to be about to a move towards financial security, but seemingly mysterious and tragic circumstances put an end to this.
The timeframe of the novel moves between the 1980s and the early part of the 21st century, when Alia is a Junior Lecturer at Oxford. She does remember her father, but the last memory is of his non-appearance at Edgware Road station, where he had arranged to meet his ten-year-old daughter. Over the years, she wondered a little about her father, but then becomes determined to discover more about him, his life and the mystery surrounding his death.
The author dealt with the fluidity of the timescales very well, with various parts of the plot falling into place. Her characters were well rounded and plausible; I cared about what happened to them. Overall, I loved this book, and hope to read more by this author.
I would like to thank LoveReading for the opportunity to read and review this novel.
March 17, 2022
This read starts off with an insight into Khalid’s and his family life in London weaving in thoughtful themes on life as an immigrant, identity, race and belonging as Khalid seems to be treated by society as an outsider while he is doing his best to give him and his family a comfortable life. However clearly his gambling addiction causes issues for him and starts creating cracks in his relationship with his wife.
The themes mentioned above continue to move through the story 20 years on which centralises on Alia in trying to understand her past, her identity that seems to be tied to another culture, another country and far away from London. It is in this part of the story which switches to almost being a mystery and the narrative delves in depth exploring notions of corruption, arms trade, war and politics.
Yasmin Codery Khan has wrapped up a lot of detail in these 350 odd pages which is captivating and compelling, but I did find at times that the level of detail did mean my levels of engagement in the narrative did wane at times.
What Yasmin Cordery Khan has done well is evoke a real sense of place, highlighting the difference lifestyles of London and Karachi that Khalid and Alia are both connected to.
This is a thought provoking and accomplished debut, which I would recommend reading.
The themes mentioned above continue to move through the story 20 years on which centralises on Alia in trying to understand her past, her identity that seems to be tied to another culture, another country and far away from London. It is in this part of the story which switches to almost being a mystery and the narrative delves in depth exploring notions of corruption, arms trade, war and politics.
Yasmin Codery Khan has wrapped up a lot of detail in these 350 odd pages which is captivating and compelling, but I did find at times that the level of detail did mean my levels of engagement in the narrative did wane at times.
What Yasmin Cordery Khan has done well is evoke a real sense of place, highlighting the difference lifestyles of London and Karachi that Khalid and Alia are both connected to.
This is a thought provoking and accomplished debut, which I would recommend reading.
June 3, 2023
It took me ages to get through this book.
At first, I was intrigued by Khalid’s story. Khalid was a compelling character! But, his story got so bogged down by the politics threads and the Alia story - the whole book was a pacing mess to be honest. The Alia story didn’t add anything and I think if we’d just stuck with Khalid, it would have been more enjoyable. Alia wasn’t a likeable character and I didn’t enjoy her chapters as they felt gratuitous juxtaposed with Khalid’s.
The structure of the book didn’t help with the pacing and fragmented feel. Each chapter was a from a different character’s perspective in a different timeline and it took ages to figure out what was even going on. The Khalid/Suzie dynamic was so similar to the Denby/Penny one that I kept getting them confused. I still have no idea who Zoe was. I could have lived without the Denby sections too, tbh.
It’s a shame because there’s a good story buried somewhere in here about addiction and falling into horrible situations out of desperation but the execution dampened it to the point of distraction. I also found how kind of underwhelming given the circumstance.
All that to say, I picked this up because of the beautiful cover. I like Khalid and I wished the story had focused on him.
At first, I was intrigued by Khalid’s story. Khalid was a compelling character! But, his story got so bogged down by the politics threads and the Alia story - the whole book was a pacing mess to be honest. The Alia story didn’t add anything and I think if we’d just stuck with Khalid, it would have been more enjoyable. Alia wasn’t a likeable character and I didn’t enjoy her chapters as they felt gratuitous juxtaposed with Khalid’s.
The structure of the book didn’t help with the pacing and fragmented feel. Each chapter was a from a different character’s perspective in a different timeline and it took ages to figure out what was even going on. The Khalid/Suzie dynamic was so similar to the Denby/Penny one that I kept getting them confused. I still have no idea who Zoe was. I could have lived without the Denby sections too, tbh.
It’s a shame because there’s a good story buried somewhere in here about addiction and falling into horrible situations out of desperation but the execution dampened it to the point of distraction. I also found how kind of underwhelming given the circumstance.
All that to say, I picked this up because of the beautiful cover. I like Khalid and I wished the story had focused on him.
February 24, 2022
Edgware Road is one of those books that is very cleverly written. Yasmin Cordery Khan has done a phenomenal job tying in different timelines to the different characters in the story and actually making it work. There was a lot going on in the story and there was a lot going on with the different characters.
I thought that the author portrayed Khalid's character brilliantly. An ambitious man with stars in his eyes; what could possibly go wrong? His ambition sadly lead him nowhere.
As much as I did like this book, there were quite a few things that I didn't enjoy either. I felt that the author went too much into unnecessary detail - especially when it came to characters such as Mark Denby. I would have liked to have read more of Khalid or even more of Alia instead of Denby and unnecessary details regarding his father. I also felt that too much time and energy was given to the whole BCCI issue. Yes, it built up Khalid's story but only to a small extent. Realistically, for me, the bank story sadly hit too close to home.
I also found the ending to be quite anti-climatic in relation to both Khalid and Alia's stories.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Head of Zeus for providing me with this book in exchange for an honest review.
I thought that the author portrayed Khalid's character brilliantly. An ambitious man with stars in his eyes; what could possibly go wrong? His ambition sadly lead him nowhere.
As much as I did like this book, there were quite a few things that I didn't enjoy either. I felt that the author went too much into unnecessary detail - especially when it came to characters such as Mark Denby. I would have liked to have read more of Khalid or even more of Alia instead of Denby and unnecessary details regarding his father. I also felt that too much time and energy was given to the whole BCCI issue. Yes, it built up Khalid's story but only to a small extent. Realistically, for me, the bank story sadly hit too close to home.
I also found the ending to be quite anti-climatic in relation to both Khalid and Alia's stories.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Head of Zeus for providing me with this book in exchange for an honest review.
May 5, 2025
(1.5)
(I was gonna do 2 but after writing this review I've become angry that I spent so much time reading something so intensely meh)
Picked this up off a library bookshelf at random like the True Reader I am. I don't exactly regret inviting such whimsy into my life, but this was soooo middling.
It promised an exciting story with twists and turns, but it ended up just feeling like the author was struggling to make up a plot to surround the story of the BCCI, which is what she actually wanted to tell. None of the characters were very interesting, and everything felt like it was nearly happening at random as a result -- the random barely-there sex scene? Alia yelling at that guy for the money? What are we doing here
The writing was pretty poor too. The author assumes you, too, are incredibly familiar with London, and frequently just names places as a shorthand for helping you imagine the setting -- which would be helpful for those who are intimately familiar with the city, but not us peasants who do not know the names of the Tube lines.
Also so many run-on sentences (separated by commas every three words, I'll give her that!). All the characters also talked in the exact same way.
Anyways. it was fine. Do not recommend
(I was gonna do 2 but after writing this review I've become angry that I spent so much time reading something so intensely meh)
Picked this up off a library bookshelf at random like the True Reader I am. I don't exactly regret inviting such whimsy into my life, but this was soooo middling.
It promised an exciting story with twists and turns, but it ended up just feeling like the author was struggling to make up a plot to surround the story of the BCCI, which is what she actually wanted to tell. None of the characters were very interesting, and everything felt like it was nearly happening at random as a result -- the random barely-there sex scene? Alia yelling at that guy for the money? What are we doing here
The writing was pretty poor too. The author assumes you, too, are incredibly familiar with London, and frequently just names places as a shorthand for helping you imagine the setting -- which would be helpful for those who are intimately familiar with the city, but not us peasants who do not know the names of the Tube lines.
Also so many run-on sentences (separated by commas every three words, I'll give her that!). All the characters also talked in the exact same way.
Anyways. it was fine. Do not recommend
February 7, 2023
sadly DNF this one.. was super excited about it and i loved the premise but it felt like the story wasn’t big enough for what the writer wanted it to be. it was a frustrating decision to stop reading because i kept going from not wanting to put the book down to wanting it to hurry up, and that feeling changed almost every chapter. they switch between different povs which, initially is really well done, and then it starts to slack a bit and my interest went with it.
the 80s references are only beneficial if you knew about the time as they don’t really explain who these people are or what is really happening, and if you do get them they don’t do anything beyond the point of reference.
but i do think the characters are very strong in this, and were a big reason as to why i didn’t finish. maybe i will one day, because i really liked alia and khalid, but for now it took me way too long to get through some chapters so i has to stop. but i will be checking out the authors work in the future because the potential is there, just not executed as well in this one sadly.
the 80s references are only beneficial if you knew about the time as they don’t really explain who these people are or what is really happening, and if you do get them they don’t do anything beyond the point of reference.
but i do think the characters are very strong in this, and were a big reason as to why i didn’t finish. maybe i will one day, because i really liked alia and khalid, but for now it took me way too long to get through some chapters so i has to stop. but i will be checking out the authors work in the future because the potential is there, just not executed as well in this one sadly.
March 3, 2022
It's the story of a man who ends up dead and his daughter who is curious about what happened to him. It's a duel timeline book and touches on issues like identity and migration, crime and corruption, opportunities, class and privilege. I used the phrase "touches on" deliberately, because mainly this is a story, and a pretty good one too.
The book has a huge scope, and does not seek to resolve anything too neatly, which is both clever and just slightly unsatisfying.
My main criticism is that (in the copy I had) the chapters were not labelled by date or by character, which could get confusing, especially as many of the chapters start out with using pronouns rather than names.
I enjoyed this story and thank NetGalley and the publishers for the free e-Arc I received in exchange for an honest review.
The book has a huge scope, and does not seek to resolve anything too neatly, which is both clever and just slightly unsatisfying.
My main criticism is that (in the copy I had) the chapters were not labelled by date or by character, which could get confusing, especially as many of the chapters start out with using pronouns rather than names.
I enjoyed this story and thank NetGalley and the publishers for the free e-Arc I received in exchange for an honest review.
March 6, 2022
What a lovely debut! I was immediately hooked by a tale that I find hard to describe (and is probably why I enjoyed it so much). This is best described as a part character, part plot-driven mystery wrapped up in historical fiction.
As someone who wasn't alive in the 80s and only has vague memories of London in the early 2000s, Khan's masterful writing made the 80s feel like a distant memory and like London was an old friend, full of life and character. I especially enjoyed seeing the multicultural side of London portrayed in such a warm way, without any of the stereotypes or undertones usually associated with those parts of London (and, if I'm being completely honest, it was the title that drew me to the book because of Edgware Road's 'Little Beirut' nickname).
Khan has an easy and delightful writing style, allowing me to easily get sucked into Alia and Khalid's world. However, there were times that Khan would segue into another topic in a way that I can only describe as jarring. I often felt confused and had to read back multiple times to make sure I hadn't missed something. It abruptly brought me back to reality, often taking me a while to being fully immersed in the book again.
I also enjoyed how Khan used Playboy's downfall and the BCCI scandal as the backdrop to this father-daughter story, with people whose names are familiar to us through history and the media interspersed throughout. All of the characters we come across, whether they're real or fictional, are interconnected in some way, providing us with different perspectives of the events taking place. I will admit though that I was confused by Mark Denby's perspective being added when it seemed to me to add little more than background to the BCCI scandal, which we could have easily gathered from Alia or Khalid's POVs. However, Denby's chapters were enjoyable and easy to read, providing insight into the life of a new MP. Denby's perspective did make sense towards the end with the blink-and-you-miss-it reference, solidifying what the clear (to me) undertone in this book that everything and everyone in the world is connected, particularly in relation to world events.
To summarise, this was a great read, one that I will recommend to friends!
With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
As someone who wasn't alive in the 80s and only has vague memories of London in the early 2000s, Khan's masterful writing made the 80s feel like a distant memory and like London was an old friend, full of life and character. I especially enjoyed seeing the multicultural side of London portrayed in such a warm way, without any of the stereotypes or undertones usually associated with those parts of London (and, if I'm being completely honest, it was the title that drew me to the book because of Edgware Road's 'Little Beirut' nickname).
Khan has an easy and delightful writing style, allowing me to easily get sucked into Alia and Khalid's world. However, there were times that Khan would segue into another topic in a way that I can only describe as jarring. I often felt confused and had to read back multiple times to make sure I hadn't missed something. It abruptly brought me back to reality, often taking me a while to being fully immersed in the book again.
I also enjoyed how Khan used Playboy's downfall and the BCCI scandal as the backdrop to this father-daughter story, with people whose names are familiar to us through history and the media interspersed throughout. All of the characters we come across, whether they're real or fictional, are interconnected in some way, providing us with different perspectives of the events taking place. I will admit though that I was confused by Mark Denby's perspective being added when it seemed to me to add little more than background to the BCCI scandal, which we could have easily gathered from Alia or Khalid's POVs. However, Denby's chapters were enjoyable and easy to read, providing insight into the life of a new MP. Denby's perspective did make sense towards the end with the blink-and-you-miss-it reference, solidifying what the clear (to me) undertone in this book that everything and everyone in the world is connected, particularly in relation to world events.
To summarise, this was a great read, one that I will recommend to friends!
With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
March 16, 2022
I was really excited to read a book set in Edgware road, having lived there myself and being a middle eastern woman, I really appreciated the specificity and representation that the story provided. The writing is confident in a way that keeps you engaged and the plot itself is fine. I wouldn’t call it mind-blowingly good but you won’t be disappointed either, probably best described as being perfectly adequate.
*** I received an early complimentary copy of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own
*** I received an early complimentary copy of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own
April 8, 2024
I’m sorry but I just couldn’t get into this at all. As an Arab with extensive knowledge of Edgware Road and that entire area the blurb on the back interested me, but the book never picked up traction. Given it’s the author’s first novel and she’s a pro at historical nonfiction I did find myself bored the entire time. I had to skim through the last 200 pages as I don’t like to dnf books at all and prefer to give them a chance. It’s not that it was poorly written, it was just boring and too long with limited plot. Not for me.
May 14, 2024
Edgware Road, Yasmin Khan’s debut fiction novel, is a tale about the lives of three individuals, spanning the streets of London to the Asian subcontinent.
Khan’s prose is wonderful – a real pleasure to read – and yet the novel isn’t quite able to facilitate the scope and ambition of its plot and characters.
Still, despite its flaws, Edgware Road is a good novel and well worth your time.
Read the full review on talesfromabsurdia.com
Khan’s prose is wonderful – a real pleasure to read – and yet the novel isn’t quite able to facilitate the scope and ambition of its plot and characters.
Still, despite its flaws, Edgware Road is a good novel and well worth your time.
Read the full review on talesfromabsurdia.com
January 15, 2025
This book jumps around in time from the 1980s to the early 2000s, and from character to character and back again. Focus is on a young girl, her Pakistani father, and a fair amount of financial hanky-panky that's historically accurate. Audio is narrated by Farzana Dua Elahe. I frequently had trouble keeping up with where we were in time and which character we were currently following. I assume the spacing on the page would signal a change in focus. I also listened to this in bits and pieces and didn't give this the attention it deserved.
March 15, 2025
This is essentially a book that weaves together two stories: a family saga where a daughter tries to establish the events surrounding her father's death, and a story about dodgy dealings relating to a bank.
The latter plot let this book down for me: I felt too much time was spent addressing stuff Khalid had done in the past relating to banking and corruption. The family saga just about pulls through but it has to fight for attention against the baggage of the bank plot. I'm not sure Khalid's past was needed in this detail, and the scenes involving Denby didn't add much in my opinion.
The latter plot let this book down for me: I felt too much time was spent addressing stuff Khalid had done in the past relating to banking and corruption. The family saga just about pulls through but it has to fight for attention against the baggage of the bank plot. I'm not sure Khalid's past was needed in this detail, and the scenes involving Denby didn't add much in my opinion.
January 24, 2022
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.
This book was compelling and well written, and my only wish is that it focused more on the characters and their relationships with each other and less on the technicalities; it felt like it was getting bogged down in the details a few too many times, which made it hard to press on.
Despite that, it was largely an enjoyable read and I appreciated the opportunity to learn about something I hadn’t previously heard of!
This book was compelling and well written, and my only wish is that it focused more on the characters and their relationships with each other and less on the technicalities; it felt like it was getting bogged down in the details a few too many times, which made it hard to press on.
Despite that, it was largely an enjoyable read and I appreciated the opportunity to learn about something I hadn’t previously heard of!
March 5, 2022
A great debut from an original voice. This engaging novel (part family drama, part unresolved mystery) tells of a young mixed race woman trying to understand the circumstances of her father’s untimely death when she was a child. I thoroughly enjoyed the characters and the plot, though the resolution of the mystery wasn’t what I expected.
Thanks to Lovereading.co.uk for sending me a pre-publication copy in return for an honest review.
Thanks to Lovereading.co.uk for sending me a pre-publication copy in return for an honest review.
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