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My new standalone novel, Eden Falls, was published earlier this month. The thrill of seeing a book you have envisioned and worked on for years finally on the shelves never gets old, and I was blown away to see this review.
This book was great fun to research, and I now know a lot more than when I started about American road trips, quantum physics, and the dark side of AI.
My wife and I travelled to the US and visited Princeton and Washington, DC - two of the novel’s principal locations (sadly didn’t make it to New Orleans or Hawaii – next time). Once there, I sought out real places where scenes could unfold. I enjoy using actual restaurants, streets and landmarks for veracity – in fact, after finding a café called Say Cheese, I found out my cousin knows the owner!
I happen upon fun coincidences a lot in my writing. Serendipity plays a large part, too. I had always wanted a climactic scene to take place at the tomb of Marie Laveau, the legendary New Orleans voodoo priestess. Then, while researching it, I discovered that Nicolas Cage had built a white pyramid as his future mausoleum in the same cemetery. Well, that was far too delicious not to include.
Researching the scary consequences of increased AI adoption required rather less travel, as hardly a week goes by without reading about some major autonomous breach. Just this month, OpenAI revealed that some of its most advanced models had broken out of a controlled environment during a security test and compromised the systems of the AI start-up Hugging Face. I also read a terrifying book called If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, which informed some of the speculation in the novel. Although I set Eden Falls a few years from now, the future seems to be racing towards us far faster than even I expected.
For meteorites and quantum physics, I turned to experts like Professor Graham Woan of Glasgow University. He and others patiently educated me in the science, after which I had to distil what I had learned into something that served the story. Eden Falls is, after all, a thriller, not a textbook. The challenge was to convey the essence of these complex subjects without baffling or boring my readers.
Perhaps, the real pleasure of researching a novel is following roads you never expected to travel, discovering connections you couldn’t have invented and then hiding all that hard work inside a story that, and this is the crucial part, keeps you turning the pages.
To learn more and order: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/474264/eden-falls-by-chowdhury-ajay/9781787305496.
In other news…
2026 has been a busy year, and it’s getting busier.
My new Kamil Rahman book, The Patriot, is out in November. The early reviews are also looking good. It’s always a nail-biting moment when they arrive: the book is finally in the hands of real readers.
To learn more and pre-order: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/468817/the-patriot-by-chowdhury-ajay/9781787305052
I’m also directing my first play in ten years at Southwark Playhouse in London. It’s the UK premiere of Dog Mom, a comedy about a recently divorced woman in her fifties who is absolutely not a dog person, and how she copes when a golden retriever decides to adopt her. We had our first Zoom rehearsal this month, and it is shaping up well.
Find out more and book your tickets for a fun night out here: https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/dog-mom/
Events
The big event this month was the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival at Harrogate. It was great meeting so many readers. I took part in a fun panel called Whatever Happened to all the Serial Killers with Clare Mackintosh, Sue Black, Vaseem Khan and Gary Wright. I also sat on panels at the Newark Book Festival and the Hemsworth Library with Gary Wright and Matt Arlidge, who were great fun to chat with.
The man with Absolute Power…. giving the amazing David Baldacci a copy of Eden Falls
Ah, go on, go on, go on… meeting Ardal O’Hanlon
Little and large… with the brilliant Antti Tuomainen
Coming up this August:
I will be at Bute Noir from August 7-9. Do come and say hello if you’re there.
Event details and tickets are available here:
https://ajaychowdhury.com/events/
Things I loved this month
· High & Low by Amanda Craig - a brilliant state of the nation novel.
· Billion Dollar Brain by Len Deighton – the best sardonic narrator ever written.
· Black Comedy at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond
· Watching Toy Story 5 with my daughter – seeing Pixar together has been a ritual for two decades
Competition
Congratulations to Donna Dickens for winning the earlier competition.
If you’d like to win a signed copy of a Kamil Rahman book of your choice, please sign up for my newsletter and answer the following question:
What is the name of Anjoli’s restaurant?
Please email your answer to ajay@ajaychowdhury.com with the subject line “Kamil Competition” and which Kamil book you’d like if you win by August 31st.
Until next month,
Ajay
My website is ajaychowdhury.com
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