‘It was a story crying out to be told!’

The story of Arthur Conan Doyle and the case of an Indian lawyer, George Edalji, falsely imprisoned for mutilating horses

1 The Mystery of the Parsee Lawyer, like your previous three other books, draws on a forgotten chapter of history, set against the backdrop of racism and Empire. What is it about the forgotten figures of history that fascinates you?

I guess I’m a very curious journalist. I’ve always been drawn to finding unusual stories. I really enjoy uncovering figures from history that have played an important role in their time, but have been forgotten over the years. I feel there is an important story to tell.

As I have lived half my life in India and half in the UK, it is the stories of India and Britain that interest me most. After all, there is over 200 years of history there.

2 What had struck you the most about the “remarkable life of the unremarkable George Edalji”, the young Parsee lawyer, who was falsely imprisoned and got a pardon only after Arthur Conan Doyle came to his defence?

I’ve always been a fan of Arthur Conan Doyle and the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. So, when I knew that the only case personally investigated by the famous writer was that of an Indian, I was fascinated. To me, it was a story crying out to be told. Conan Doyle had himself written about the case, but I wanted to know more. I wanted to find out the background of the Edalji family, what life was like for them as the only Indian family in an English village, how the parishioners reacted to their Indian vicar. The bizarre and gruesome nature of the crime made it all the more fascinating. Who can resist a dark crime in a small English village, especially when Sherlock Holmes himself comes to solve it? It took five years to research the story and I found shocking new material in the police files.

3 What stage of research were you at when Julian Barnes’s novel based on the same case, Arthur and George (2005), came out?

I was always aware of George Edalji and wanted to write about him one day. I was working on Victoria & Abdul when Julian Barnes published his novel, Arthur & George. It was a work of fiction, but he did cover the basic facts of the case. So I just put my idea on hold. It was in 2015 that I heard that a batch of letters between Arthur Conan Doyle and the head of Staffordshire police were coming up for auction. To me, it was a sign. I was sure there would be new material and I could finally write George Edalji’s true story.

4 Though there was no closure for Edalji, how did the case help in trials of people of colour in England?

The George Edalji case led to the Criminal Appeals Act by which convicted prisoners could appeal against a sentence. Previous to that, they had no legal recourse and could only petition the Home Office.