The only cure for temptation,’ Oscar Wilde famously quipped, ‘is to yield to it.’ So is it with Khurram Rahman’s East of Hounslow. I plunged into this debut novel and fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. Though I think the book should have had a statutory prediction: On publication, the next book by the author will munch up many lines of newsprint. For Pakistan-born, and England-raised author Khurram Rahman’s book is eminently readable. Should you have a taste for the classic British understated humour, it will be hard for any crime thriller to better this.
East of Hounslow, West London, is where the book begins. A British-born Muslim, Javid Qasim—we are told to call him Jay. ‘No one, but no one, calls me Javid, not even my mum,’ you hear him protest. If you go down that path, no self-respecting girl will give out her phone number to someone called Javid. There’s our Jay, a loveable fool, a petty dope dealer living happily with his widowed mother.
He is in no tearing hurry to grow up, setting out each day to peddle drugs, cruise the streets all of six days a week. On the side, he does all the wicked things that are against the faith he was born to. The only exception of course is ‘Juma’ or Friday when he heads to the local mosque.
With great pride, he leaves his recently acquired Beemer (with customised rims) parked outside with great care. You’re invited to look at its beautiful body, slender and sleek and oozing sex appeal—small wonder then, he’s in love with his BMW.
On arrival, he finds the House of Worship vandalised, the crazed handiwork of a bunch of hooligans. Life takes an unpredictable turn when he finds himself being arm-twisted into becoming an undercover M15 plant in a group of Jihadists. And that is precisely when he falls into the abyss. The Preacher warns: ‘Qayamat is coming. Judgment day is almost upon us. The day of reckoning, the day when we must answer… it has been prophesised… Look around you and you will see the signs. Women are naked in spite of being fully dressed. Earthquakes have increased…’
Jay teaches us while on the move, giving the reader a ready-reckoner into the lives of the stereotyped. With élan he takes you by the hand, himself a fumbling expert, trying to find a way through the minefields of the initiated. Clipped dialogues, staccato sentences and the hilariously brilliant prose set the pace of this excellent unputdownable crime thriller.
Read on. The climax will leave you breathless.