Ajay Chowdhury, the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland prize, is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director. His children’s book – Ayesha and the Firefish, was published in 2016 and adapted into a musical which premiered in San Francisco. 
 
 
The Waiter (Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month), was published in 2021, and is the first in his critically-acclaimed crime series about Detective Kamil Rahman, an ex-policeman from Kolkata who has moved to Brick Lane in London. It is being adapted for television by Moonage Pictures.The Cook (Guardian Top Crime Books of the Year) was published in May 2022 to excellent reviews and deals with the issue of homelessness. The third book in the series – The Detective (Sunday Times Top Crime Books of the Year) – is about government surveillance and AI. The Spy (Longlisted Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing), the fourth book, sees Kamil infiltrate a terrorist cell. The Shadow (A Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month) is the latest book in the series.

Ajay Chowdhury

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Alex McBride

Thomas Cream, erstwhile Sunday school teacher and serial poisoner, has an unsettling air and wonky eye. He also happens to be a doctor, which provides him with ample means and an ideal cover for his murderous activities. His victims are vulnerable young women, whose trust he gains with drinks and trips to the music hall, before offering them pills or swigs from a medicine bottle. A few hours later, they are dying in agony. 
 
The Honourable Thomas Ley, meanwhile, has an even better disguise: he's the former Justice Minister for New South Wales and a successful businessman, albeit with a shady past. Rumours abound when a political opponent disappears without trace and a business partner winds up at the bottom of a cliff. 
 
Neither killer can help themselves - and this, in the end, leads to their downfall - and both defy our comprehension. Brilliantly reconstructed here, their trials, in 1892 and 1947, reveal a deeply sinister conundrum: by the time you've discovered the secrets in their heart, it's inevitably much too late.

Famous Trials: Thrill-Killers

John Gapper

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. This is John Gapper's foray into the world of rogue traders. 
 
Unlike most bankers, they are household names: Nick Leeson of Barings, Jerome Kerviel of Societe Generale, John Rusnak of Allied Irish Bank. And now the 31 year-old Kweku Adoboli, who allegedly ran up $2.3bn in losses at UBS. These are the men who have bought banks to their knees and global financial systems to a halt. Each time the banks declare themselves to be innocent victims of a fraud. 
 
But why do traders keep on committing apparently senseless crimes, with little benefit apart from higher bonuses and a risk of ending up in prison? And why do banks, which should have learned the tricks of the traders, keep being deceived? 
 
In this Penguin Special, the Financial Times' associate editor John Gapper unlocks the mystery by delving into the evolutionary risk-taking instincts of both humans and animals - from yellow-eyed junco sparrows in Arizona to honey-bees. He reveals how banks encourage their traders to evade risk limits, and shows how the rogue traders merely mimic the strategies used by their firms to seem more profitable than they really are. 
 
A rogue trader is often an outsider who starts in a lowly role and gambles with a bank's money in a bid to become a star. Gapper traces patterns of behaviour and personality that could be used to catch them before disaster strikes. But do the banks really want to? And are the rogue traders just the symptoms of a financial system gone rogue?

How to be a Rogue Trader

Mary Mount

This is Sam Frears' story. 
 
This is also the story of an actor, a rock-climber and a man born with an extremely rare genetic disorder only affecting Ashkenazi Jews. Sam was supposed to live to the age of 5. In February, he celebrated his 40th birthday. 
 
Challenged by blindness and a body under great stress, Sam Frears is trying to live an ordinary life under extraordinary circumstances His struggles and triumphs offer an illuminating look at the differences - and similarities - that make us human.

Being Sam Frears

A Life Less Ordinary

Penelope Lively

'Anyone artistic needed Abroad in the 1950s.' 
 
Paul and his girlfriend are artists in need of subject matter. Arresting, evocative subject matter. So they decide to go Abroad, as much as possible, for as long as possible. Because Abroad is full of well furnished scenery. Particularly peasants. Real, earthy, traditional peasants. Except you shouldn't really call them peasants should you? 'Country people'. Abroad is full of country people. 
 
In this funny, deftly written short story, Penelope Lively satirises an arty student of the 50s, a precursor of the gap year traveller, who hasn't learnt as much from her time Abroad as she likes to think . . .

Abroad

A respectable solicitor in the town of Hay-on-Wye, harried by his troubled wife, slowly and carefully poisons her to death. Pleased with the results, he sees an opportunity for another quick-fix solution and turns his murderous attentions to his business rival... 
 
Trapped in a marriage of convenience to an aging man almost thirty years her senior, thirty-eight year-old Alma falls in love with seventeen year-old George, when he answers her advertisement for a 'willing lad' to do the housework. It's the perfect set up - a well-disposed husband and a passionate lover - until George destroys it all by trying to get the husband out of the way... 
 
These two classic cases of spousal murder - one chillingly domestic, the other bizarre and touching - took place in 1922 and 1935. In these brilliant reconstructions, they continue to confound our expectations of how murderers are meant to proceed.

Famous Trials: Unwanted Spouses

Jonathan Coe

When a family celebrates the prize-giving day at their daughter's secondary school, thoughts turn to their own childhoods. The father remembers his living room piano recital, recorded on a well-worn cassette tape. The mother remembers her own father's war tragedy. As the father searches for the physical reminder of his past and the mother longs to forget her own, they confront the breakdown of their marriage in the present. 
 
In Pentatonic, Jonathan Coe movingly explores the memories that unite us and the experiences that drive us apart. The story is simultaneously available as a digital download with the piece of music which originally inspired the story.

Pentatonic

A Story of Music

The Economist Publications (PUK Rights)

The Penguin Economist Special reports delve into the most pressing economic issues of the day: from national and global economies, to the impact of trade, industry and jobs. Written to be read on a long commute or in your lunch hour - be better informed in under an hour. 
 
Pakistan is in a tricky situation. It is under constant scrutiny by the world media but is more often than not described in terms of its problems. 
 
There are indeed difficulties - bordering the unsettled nations of Afghanistan and Iran puts it in a precarious position. A poor and badly educated population for the most part is not helping the country's growth. 
 
There is hope. 
 
The wealth of natural resources, a growing, urban population and a more democratic government all point to a positive future. 
 
But with the NATO withdrawal from its troubled neighbours nearing, Pakistan's survival hangs in the balance. 
 
Simon Long's special report includes the following sections: 
 
Perilous Journey 
Too close for comfort 
State of vulnerability 
Captain's innings 
In the shadow of the mosque 
Lights off 
A taste of Hunny 
Always with us 
Dripping with blood 
Going with the flow

The Economist: Pakistan

Perilous Journey

Elif Shafak

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. This is Elif Shafak's examination of national identity. 
 
"You know, I never understand. How come their children are so quiet and well disciplined?" 
"Yeah," said the distressed father, his voice suddenly softer. "Blond children never cry, do they?" 
 
As Elif Shafak stands in line at the airport, she overhears a Turkish father expressing to a friend his bewilderment at the cultural differences he's experienced since immigrating to northern Europe. Is it true, she wonders, that the citizens of these countries are genuinely happier? Why do people leave their homes for other countries? And what lessons can we all learn, for the creation of truly harmonious societies, from the experiences of immigrants? 
 
In the light of the recent backlash against multiculturalism and the influx of millions of Muslims into Europe from the east, this powerful and personal essay uses the lived experience of immigrants to examine this most hotly debated subject.

The Happiness of Blond People

A Personal Meditation on the Dangers of Identity

John Garnaut

When news of the murder trial of prominent Communist Party leader Bo Xilai's wife reached Western attention, it was apparent that, as with many events in the secretive upper echelons of Chinese politics, there was more to the story. Now, as the Party's 18th National Congress oversees the biggest leadership transition in decades, and installs the Bo family's long-time rival Xi Jinping as president, China's rulers are finding it increasingly difficult to keep their poisonous internal divisions behind closed doors. 
 
Bo Xilai's breathtaking fall from grace is an extraordinary tale of excess, murder, defection, political purges and ideological clashes going back to Mao himself, as the princeling sons of the revolutionary heroes ascend to control of the Party. China watcher John Garnaut examines how Bo's stellar rise through the ranks troubled his more reformist peers, as he revived anti-'capitalist roader' sentiment, even while his family and associates enjoyed the more open economy's opportunities. Amid fears his imminent elevation to the powerful Standing Committee was leading China towards another destructive Cultural Revolution, have his opponents seized their chance to destroy Bo and what he stood for? The trigger was his wife Gu Kailai's apparently paranoid murder of an English family friend, which exposed the corruption and brutality of Bo's outwardly successful administration of the massive city of Chongqing. It also led to the one of the highest-level attempted defections in Communist China's history when Bo's right-hand man, police chief Wang Lijun, tried to escape the ruins of his sponsor's reputation. 
 
Garnaut explains how this incredible glimpse into the very personal power struggles within the CCP exposes the myth of the unified one-party state. With China approaching super-power status, today's leadership shuffle may set the tone for international relations for decades. Here, Garnaut reveals a particularly Chinese spin on the old adage that the personal is political.

The Rise and Fall of the House of Bo

How A Murder Exposed The Cracks In China’s Leadership

Alan Beattie

As we watch wave after wave of volatility threaten the global economy, it is tempting to ask, who is in charge here? The answer, journalist and economist Alan Beattie explains, is all too often no one. 
 
The crisis that began with mortgages in American suburbia has now spread around the world from banks to businesses to governments, threatening to bring decades of economic progress to a juddering halt. Globalization's strengths - its speed, breadth, and complexity - have also proved to be weaknesses as the crisis has traveled more rapidly and widely around the globe than the boom, and faster than governments have usually been able to react. 
 
The United States, which has led the global economy since the second world war, has been weakened by political division at home. Like ancient Rome, it has been challenged by an array of upstarts - emerging markets like China, India and Brazil. But just like the tribes that brought down the Roman Empire, the rising powers are strong enough to block American leadership yet not united enough to provide direction of their own. 
 
In Europe, as country after country has slid towards trouble, it has become evident that the eurozone's slow and unwieldy policy frameworks are woefully unfit for dealing with financial crises. As Beattie writes: "It [is] like watching a gang of irascible, quarrelsome architects trying to redesign a house in the middle of a raging fire." 
 
With the penetrating wit for which he is known, Alan Beattie explains how international economic institutions like the IMF can work - and how they often don't. He calls out the more spectacular failures of judgment and leadership, as well as the less frequent bright spots, in handling the crisis, showing how governments scrambled to respond as the ground started to give way.

Who's in Charge Here?

How Governments are Failing the World Economy

Will Self

'Most food writing and restaurant criticism is concerned with the ideal, with how by cooking this, or dining there, you can somehow ingurgitate a new - or at any rate improved - social, aesthetic and even spiritual persona. I aimed to turn this proposition on its head, and instead of commenting on where and what people would ideally like to eat I would consider where and what they actually did: the ready meals, buffet snacks and - most importantly - fast food that millions of Britons chomp upon in the go-round of their often hurried and dyspeptic lives.' 
 
In this selection from his hilarious New Statesman Real Meals column, Will Self reviews the chains where most of us go to eat (KFC, Greggs, Yo! Sushi, Pizza Express and their like), delves into the ubiquitous Thai meal and chicken tikka masala, and experiences hotel breakfasts, frozen tv dinners and airline food on our behalf. These are restaurant reviews of the kind you've never read before.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Prawn Cracker

A Selection of Real Meals

Anita Brookner

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. This is a poignant novella from Anita Brookner. 
 
'I rather hope I shall die at the hairdresser's, for they are bound to know what to do. At least that is what I tell myself.' 
 
Solitude is a familiar burden for Elizabeth Warner. She lives in a basement flat near Victoria and leaves the house only to go shopping and to have her hair done - until a chance encounter at the hairdresser's brings unexpected change. At the Hairdresser's is a deeply moving, unflinchingly observed story about trust and betrayal by one of the greatest writers of contemporary fiction.

At the Hairdresser's

Colin Smith

John Bierman

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. In this Special, Colin Smith and John Bierman make the battle of Alamein come alive. 
 
A turning point in the Second World War, the battle of El Alamein was the culmination of a military campaign like no other. Fought across desolate arid terrain, the brutal fighting was matched by a camaraderie and respect between enemies as witnessed in no other theatre of war. Combining gritty personal testimonies with thorough journalistic investigation, John Bierman and Colin Smith present a compelling account of a ferocious but compassionate battle and a journey through the unforgiving North African landscape.

Great Battles: The Battle of Alamein

North Africa 1942

Paul French

The Badlands, a warren of narrow hutongs in the eastern district of pre-communist Peking, had its heyday in the 1930s. Home to the city's drifters, misfits and the odd bohemian, it was a place of opium dens, divebars, brothels, flophouses and cabarets, and was infamous for its ability to satisfy every human desire from the exotically entertaining to the criminally depraved.   These vignettes of eight non-Chinese residents of the precinct  White Russians, Americans and Europeans  bring the Badlands vividly back to life, providing a short but potent account of a place and a way of life until now largely forgotten, but here rendered unforgettable.

The Badlands

Decadent Playground of Old Peking

Brian Cathcart

Hugh Grant

When most of the British press conspired to cover up the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World, what did that tell us? That it wasn't just the News of the World that had something to hide. And when the Leveson Inquiry lifted the lid on their activities we saw what it was: illegal practices, dishonesty, a disregard for the rights of ordinary people and an arrogant assumption of unaccountability. Now the battle is on to decide whether anything will change and the editors and proprietors, with their vast propaganda power, are determined to ensure nothing will. This book, by a long-time journalist who is a founder of the Hacked Off campaign, paints a damning picture of press corruption and makes a passionate case for journalism that doesn't bully and lie - journalism that is truly answerable to the public while remaining free from government interference. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get this right, and we must not allow powerful media corporations to snatch that chance from us.

Everybody's Hacked Off

Why We Don't Have the Press we Deserve and What to Do About It

Nineteen year-old Madeleine Smith may have been charged in 1857 with poisoning her lover, Emile L'Angelier, but her real sin was having sex - a lot of sex - out of wedlock. Her mistake was to write him frank and passionate letters, described by the trial judge as 'without any sense of decency', which L'Angelier threatened to send to her father when she cooled on the idea of marriage, having secretly engaged herself to someone else. 
 
Some fifty years later, the trial of Robert Wood, a respectable, hard-working illustrator by day, who frolicked with prostitutes by night, including the unfortunate Emily Dimmock, also hinged on a dangerous correspondence. Dimmock's murderer had evidently ransacked her rooms for a postcard written by Wood. Was there something he was desperate to hide? The author of his trial is certain he was guilty. 
 
But both escaped conviction - in Wood's case, thanks to the defence of the best defence barrister in the land. In Madeleine Smith's, the three judges ruled two-to-one to exclude from evidence L'Angelier's pocket book, which recorded her meetings with him on the day of the murder. These two salacious and controversial trials demonstrate how the dramatic difference between 'guilty' and 'not guilty' can sometimes be decided by a mere scrap of paper.

Famous Trials: Lucky Escapes

Saul David

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. This is Saul David's compelling examination of one of history's greatest battles. 
 
On 22nd January, at Isandlwana in Zululand, South-East Africa, the British Army suffered one of the worst defeats in its history. A camp of 1,700 men, armed with state-of-the-art weapons and two artillery pieces, was surprised and overwhelmed by a huge Zulu army equipped with only spears. It became the seminal battle of the Zulu War, an ill-conceived, incompetently executed and fruitless campaign for the British. 
 
In this Penguin Short, Saul David presents a concise, devastating and utterly gripping account of the most brutal of battles that will transport you to the plains of Africa and the cauldron of war, and all for less than the price of a cup of coffee.

Great Battles: The Battle of Isandlwana

The Great Zulu Victory of 1879

Helen Dunmore

'Tonight it is the concert. Two Prodigies of Nature are coming to play in my lady's ball-room. As soon as the concert begins I understand why the whole world comes to stare and listen.' 
 
Scipio is eleven years old and a lady's page. He plays the harpsichord, speaks French and German, and sings in Italian. But what was appealing and remarkable in a small child is no longer so in a 'hobbledehoy'. And after he meets the two child prodigies, Wolfi and Nannerl, at a concert, Scipio's fate will change forever.

The Land Lubbers Lying Down Below

James Pettifer

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. 
 
The financial and social crisis in Greece has deep roots in the country's society and history. In this new Penguin Short, the leading Balkan commentator and Oxford University historian James Pettifer explores the reasons for Greece's current situation, tracing the deep fissures caused by unresolved issues dating back to the Second World War, Greece's often difficult relationships with Turkey and the Balkan neighbours to the north, and its problematic position in the European Union. In 1981, Greece became the tenth member of what was then the European Economic Community, and for a time seemed to be making good progress in democratisation and economic development. Now that achievement is at serious risk. 
 
The author has extensive experience in Greece dating back to the time of the Colonels dictatorship in the early 1970s and its bitter aftermath. The Making of the Greek Crisis sets the scene for the country's intractable financial crisis and associated conflict with the European Union institutions in Brussels, and explains the practical, difficult choices facing the Greek people at this important turning point in their history.

The Making of the Greek Crisis

New Revised Edition: 2015

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. This is a chilling tale by Helen Dunmore. 
 
'It was nothing, she tells herself, but her body knows better.' 
 
Florence lives in the country, lapped by miles and miles of darkness. She feels safe there - until a noise wakes her in the middle of the night. 
 
Protection is a short story by bestselling author Helen Dunmore that will cause your skin to prickle and make you ask yourself how far you would go to protect your family.

Protection

Professor Dame Sally Davies

Jonathan Grant

Mike Catchpole

This is a story that affects us all: our friends, our family and our children. Antibiotics add, on average, 20 years to everyone's lives. Since the manufacture of penicillin in 1943, for over 70 years we have survived extraordinary operations and life-threatening infections. We are so familiar with these wonder drugs that we take them for granted. The truth is that we have been abusing them: as patients; as doctors; as travellers; in our food. 
 
No new class of antibiotic has been discovered for 26 years and the bugs are fighting back. If we do not take action now, in a few decades we may start dying from the most commonplace of ailments that can today be treated easily. This book is vital in raising awareness for the future health of our children and our grandchildren.

The Drugs Don't Work

A Global Threat

Colm Tóibín

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. This is Colm Tóibín's touching memoir. 
 
A Guest at the Feast moves from the small town of Enniscorthy to Dublin, from memories of a mother who always had a book on the go to the author's early adulthood, from a love of literature to the influences of place and family. Tóibín's captivating memoir is the story of a writer coming of age and his connections between home, work and love. It is a perfect gem of a book.

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