Trillionaires, Heists and Dog Moms
July newsletter
Hi and welcome to my first ever free newsletter! I plan to publish it monthly and talk about topics of the day (eg the use of AI in the arts) as well as writing tips, competitions, giveaways, exclusive book extracts and so on. Please do sign up here:
https://linktr.ee/AjayChowdhury
I’ve been debating whether to do one for quite a while, unsure whether readers would really be interested in my thoughts on writing, the worrying state of technology, and the arts in general. But then something happened on June 12th that I think will seriously affect our world, so I decided to share a few thoughts.
For the first time in human history, a person became a trillionaire.
Elon Musk, after the flotation of SpaceX.
Now, on the face of it, this might prompt a collective shrug of the shoulders. Rich man gets even richer. So what? But I think it has serious ramifications.
First, let’s look at the difference between a million and a trillion. We’re so used to hearing these numbers being bandied about that they’ve almost lost their meaning. Big bucks. Bigger bucks. Absurdly bigger bucks.
So let me frame it differently.
A million seconds is around twelve days.
A trillion seconds is almost thirty-two thousand years.
Or, in a more physical example – if you stacked a trillion dollars worth of a hundred dollar bills together they would stretch from London to Verona!
That is the scale we are talking about.
So Elon Musk’s wealth now dwarfs that of every other individual on the planet. This worries me, not just because of the sheer level of income inequality, which has been getting worse for decades, but because I don’t believe this level of wealth was remotely merited.
I’m sure Musk is a smart guy, but in my view, this fortune has been largely ‘earned’ through sheer crony capitalism, specifically his closeness to the current US government.
Musk has presided over many, many failures: Hyperloop, Neuralink, Twitter/X, SolarCity. And three genuine successes: Tesla, Starlink and SpaceX. Now, you may say he shoots for the stars and some things are bound to fail, and there is some truth in that. But his companies have also succeeded because they received vast amounts of support and funding from the US government, something that appears to have accelerated as he has grown closer to Donald Trump.
And Musk has responded by going in and slashing funding to the world’s poorest people, putting organisations like USAID ‘through the woodchipper’.
It is my dislike of this man that helped shape the antagonist of my new thriller, Eden Falls.
Markus Noel is a charismatic trillionaire. I set the novel in the near future because I thought it would be years before we actually had a trillionaire. Clearly, I was not imaginative enough.
Noel has created an AI assistant called Manx, which effectively runs our lives for us: managing our day-to-day affairs, freeing us to focus on what makes us truly happy.
Or so it claims.
Because, slowly, Manx begins to take over. As Noel puts it in Eden Falls:
“In the coming months, every one of you will either be instructing a machine or taking instructions from one. So, I’m going to let you into a little secret.” He lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper. “You’re redundant. You all have a choice. Embrace Manx or pick a profession AI will not replace. Become a hairdresser. A ski instructor. A plumber. A sewage worker. Because that’s all your coveted MBA will be good for. To clean up other people’s shit.”
You can learn more about the book and pre-order it here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/474264/eden-falls-by-chowdhury-ajay/9781787305496.
Been lucky to get some great feedback from others writers and pre-readers.
‘A clever, timely and thrilling page turner’ Jo Callaghan
‘Outstanding’ Abir Mukherjee
‘A first-rate thriller’ William Shaw
‘Pulsating’ Vaseem Khan
In other news…
2026 has been a busy year, and it’s getting busier.
In addition to Eden Falls, which is published in July, my new Kamil Rahman book, The Patriot, is out in November. I still can’t quite believe it’s the sixth in the series.
In this one, Kamil and Anjoli are inadvertently drawn into the orbit of a rogue historian who plans to steal the Koh-i-Noor diamond from the Tower of London. I’ve always wanted to write a heist novel, and this was great fun to research and write. Rififiis a brilliant heist movie, by the way. Do watch it if you haven’t already.
Read an exclusive extract from The Patriot and buy it here:
https://www.penguin.co.uk/discover/articles/extract-the-patriot
I’m also editing the next Kamil, which is out next year. Kamil and Anjoli go to New York for an uber-posh wedding, which is then derailed by a murder. I’ve always been a big fan of The Bonfire of the Vanities, and I wanted to contrast the lives of two immigrants in today’s America: one undocumented and trying to evade ICE, the other a crypto-billionaire living in the penthouse of Manhattan’s tallest building. I look forward to seeing what you think.
The Shadow was shortlisted for the Eastern Eye crime novel of the year, 2026.
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.
Learn more here and do come if it strikes a chord.
https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/dog-mom/
Events
I’ve just finished several events – Alibis in the Archive at Gladstone’s Library in North Wales, Shetland Noir in Lerwick (where we won the quiz!) and Capital Crime in London. Was great to meet so many readers and amazing writers there.
With the amazing Anne Cleeves
Going elbow to elbow with Vaseem Khan
Our winning quiz team: Jacky Collins. Louise Mangos. Tim Rideout. Verena Rose. Alis Hawkins.
There are several more events coming up, including the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, Bloody Scotland and Bute Noir. Do come and say hello if you’re there.
List of events and tickets are available here:
https://ajaychowdhury.com/events/
Things I loved this month
Anish Kapoor at the Hayward Gallery
Equus at the Menier Chocolate Factory
Dinner with my wife at The Shell Company in Highgate
Bowie at the Lightroom in London
The Eastern Eye ACTA awards
Competition
And finally, if you’d like to win a signed and personalised copy of a Kamil Rahman book of your choice (and get your answer published in a future book), please sign up for my newsletter and do the following:
Suggest a slogan for one of Anjoli’s T-shirts
Please do send an email with your suggestion to ajay@ajaychowdhury.com with the subject line “T-Shirt Competition” and which Kamil book you’d like if you do win.
My website is www.ajaychowdhury.com
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