BOOKS
THE CARETAKER
**Starred reviews in Library Journal and Booklist.**
** Reviews and profiles in New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Richmond Times, LA Review of Books, Publishers Weekly and Boston Globe.**
“This fine thriller debut views disturbing political realism through the lens of Ranjit Singh, a newly immigrated Sikh fleeing danger in India after a politically explosive mistake ends his military career. Ranjit’s hope to settle in Martha’s Vineyard becomes reality when his landscaping work for a powerful senator’s wife grows into an unexpected relationship, opening doors for him to work as winter caretaker for the island’s wealthiest residents.”—Booklist
“Told with propulsive narrative drive, The Caretaker weaves a compelling story, beguiling characters, and two exotic locales--India and Martha's Vineyard--into a suspenseful whole. A wonderful debut.” ―Richard North Patterson, #1 New York Times bestselling author
THE LAST TAXI RIDE
**Chosen for NPR’s ‘Best Books of 2015’**
** Featured on NPR’s Fresh Air**
** Chosen for Entertainment Weekly’s ‘Best Summer Reads.’**
“Ahmad does a wonderful job of conveying the vibrant underworld that has become Singh's new life. As the action unfolds in the old garages and cheap ethnic restaurants where the cabbies congregate and where jailhouse lawyers hold meetings in back rooms, he builds a vision of a city that is more "Slumdog Millionaire" (or "Dirty Pretty Things") than "Manhattan"…. [An] intriguing glimpse inside the South Asian immigrant experience, rich in flavors and expressions that can conjure a memory or throw a character back in time.” ―The Boston Globe
THIS IS NOT YOUR COUNTRY
**Winner of the 2020 GS Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction**
America has upended the lives of the Indian immigrants in this short story collection: A doctor addicted to the adrenaline rush of the ER, a genius computer programmer who always gets fired, a high-level bureaucrat outshone by his young wife, a teenage runaway, and a lonely livery driver who befriends a troupe of street acrobats. As they desperately seek solace in love, sex, and status, they discover that the journey to real belonging is much stranger than they had ever imagined.
"Ahmad is interested in dreamers, secret-harborers, country-leavers. They convince us that their world is not right, that much has happened before, that resolution and healing is close by. But Ahmad promises us nothing. Perhaps that is why we should read him, because he makes us want to believe."
—Deepak Unnikrishnan, author of Temporary People