Edgware Road: Yasmin Cordery Khan

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The story is told between two different time periods; 2003 where Alia Quraishi wants to know who her father was and what happened to the kind mind she remembers. And then the past, 1981, where the young Khalid Quraishi starts his dangerous life in gambling.

It’s an ambitious book, well-written and thoughtful, and I think it’s pretty much achieved its ambitions. There is certainly more to it than I expected. I look forward to seeing how this is received by proper critics. That’s all interesting, but it was the characters of Khalid and Alia I enjoyed most, and the contrast between their generations and the cultures and how people mix – or not. We surface by a medley of unloved signs. One for the subway itself, named after Clash frontman Joe Strummer: Just up from it, on the other side of the road, a beautiful pawnbrokers appears to have weathered the centuries well. Earlier images online suggest it's been going since 1797. However, the key difference here is that there are a large number of narrative threads opened by Khan, including Khalid’s involvement with the BCCI, Alia’s relationship with her family in Pakistan, Denby’s troubled home life – just to name a handful. These plot moments, amongst others, do not feel fully explored.

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Yet it starts with a daughter hoping to meet a father who never appears and how we unravel where he went after he left his wife and daughter Alia. This is a book full of delicious surprises! It starts with the slow-burn of a domestic drama of a family torn apart by one man's ambition and inability to control his gambling addiction, and then heads off into a glorious twisty and expansive mystery thriller that delves into corruption, ineptitude, and very dark deeds. There is an understated family rift building that leaves Alia scrambling to uncover the truth later in life. Meanwhile Alia is searching for clues following the disappearance of her father. In an endeavour to discover the truth, Alia’s travels take her from exploring the streets of London to connecting with distant relatives in Pakistan. A daughter of a post-partition Pakistani family now living in England, her complex heritage forms a significant part of her narrative.

The digitally native, all year round, online literature and books festival, with new content released every week is a free-for-all-users festival.They and her grandmother are delighted to see her again. There are countless relatives at the party for her. She represents something. The story is narrated through the eyes of Alia, initially as a child and later as an academic at Oxford University. As the novel progresses and Alia reaches adulthood, her writings and observations become more succinct. At times, the novel feels autobiographical given the fact the author is an Associate Professor at Oxford. Another theme is Mo Salah: worshipped, apparently, in three places: Egypt, Liverpool and the Edgware Road. Though the Allah adverts pasted onto the sides on buses on routes along here remind people who the real god is.

Khalid liked Irish pubs in any case. You could usually find someone to stand you a drink in O’Connors, or in the Rose of Tralee further down the road. In Khalid’s view, Sufism and Catholicism had a lot in common. Imran knew his views on the subject and was mostly in agreement. The Irish and the Asians, their own little people in a sea of imperial bastards.” Where do you find a lost father? In the mirror, in the sweep of an arched eyebrow, in the sheen of hair? In the echo of a phrase that comes in the night, passed on and learned.” Firstly, I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

And this slipshod sign for Paddington Green Police Station (you wouldn't have got such dire signage at the Metropolitan Theatre). Every now and then — partly out of curiosity, partly for shade — we nip off piste, to see what hides directly behind Edgware Road. Just off Sussex Gardens we find the unassuming Heron pub. Unassuming apart from two things: a Queens Guard, permanently Perspexed into his sentry box. And a sign that explains the pub is home to meet-ups for The Handlebar Club — a collective of gentlemen who've been priding themselves on their face furniture since 1947.