Eclectic crime fiction & informed, irreverent non-fiction from Asia & beyond
My latest story with French journalist Laure Siegel on Odisha, one of India’s least visited states, and its fledgling tourist industry, published in the Nikkei Asian Review. PURI, India — “Jay Jagannath! Jay Jagannath!” A sea of people chants the sacred mantra while pulling on thick ropes hauling three massive, 14-meter-high wooden carts decorated in […]
Continue ReadingMy latest story with Laure Siegel on government censorship and the arts in India, focusing on theater on Mumbai and Delhi. MUMBAI/NEW DELHI — “First they come for the movies. Then for the books. Theater will be the last to be hit, but the clamp-down is coming,” said Anish Victor, a founder of Rafiki, a […]
Continue ReadingVery happy to say that my publishing house Crime Wave Press have released their 24th title. The Kolkata Conundrum by Kalyan Lahiri is a classic detective tale set in the infamous West Bengali capital. The tale of a murdered high so lady is the first Orko Deb Mystery, following the adventures of a sometimes hapless […]
Continue ReadingBetween 1995 and 2004 I recorded several hundred hours of music and sounds from Asia for The British Library’s National Sound Archive – material from Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, The Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan, India and Nepal. I recorded mostly the music of minorities and musicians in remote rural locations. I released several CD collections of […]
Continue ReadingA Madras Miasma, written by Brian Stoddart and published by my crime fiction imprint Crime Wave Press, makes the Top 10 crime debuts of 2014 @ Crime Fiction Lover (UK). The author is a distinguished academic in Australia, and has written many non-fiction books, but this is his debut as a novelist. We are in […]
Continue ReadingThe Orissa Post, the largest English language newspaper in Orissa, India, has republished On the Tea Trail, the story of Makaibari Tea Estates near Darjeeling and the world’s most expensive cuppa.
Continue ReadingEveryone has a good book in them so they say, Asia’s first English-language crime publishing house looks set to put that adage to the test. Mark Bibby Jackson interviews me about all things Crime Wave Press in this month’s ASIA LIFE Magazine, both in the Thailand and Cambodia edition. I get to talk about crime […]
Continue ReadingI have been interviewed in the October edition of Esquire Magazine (Thai edition) about my worst travel experience ever. Bit of a dilemma as I have encountered quite a few disastrous scenarios in the past 25 years on the road. But my failure to rescue a severely injured men in Zanskar (northwestern India), the subject […]
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