In The Girl in Cell A, Vaseem Khan delivers a tense, gripping standalone psychological thriller that marks a dramatic shift from his historical crime work—and it’s a risk that more than pays off.

The novel centres on Orianna Negi, who has spent 18 years imprisoned for a murder she may not have committed. Convicted at just 17, Orianna is now at the centre of a psychological re-investigation, led by forensic psychologist Annie Ledet. As Annie works to unravel Orianna’s traumatic memories, she must navigate the secrets of Eden Falls—a small town shaped by power, racism, and the shadowy legacy of the Wyclerc family.

Switching between two timelines—Orianna’s present-day prison sessions and flashbacks to the events leading to the murder—The Girl in Cell A delivers twist after twist with masterful pacing. Early readers compare Khan’s storytelling finesse to Tana French and Chris Whitaker, praising his ability to maintain suspense while deeply exploring character and setting.

Khan’s portrayal of small-town America is both vivid and unsettling, capturing the weight of systemic injustice and the psychological toll of buried truths. It’s an immersive and emotionally intense read, with complex, fully realised characters, particularly Orianna and Annie, who anchor the novel’s moral core.

Expect:
- A layered psychological mystery
- Unreliable memory and trauma as key themes
- Twists you won’t see coming
- Strong feminist undertones and racial dynamics

4.5 stars
Confession first... I have never read this author before this book. Although, after finishing it, I now have his series books, firmly in my sights. Even though, this book appears to be the polar opposite to them, I know when I gel with an author's style...
The titular "Girl in Cell A" is one Orianna Negi who has been incarcerated for 18 years for the murder of Gideon Wyclerc when she was only 17. Also that night, Gideon's daughter Grace disappeared, never to be seen again. Throughout her sentence Orianna has always maintained her innocence, even though she has no recollection of the events that occurred that fateful night. During her sentence, she was treated by Forensic Psychologist Annie Ledet, who was trying to break through Orianna's amnesia, to get to the truth, however shocking, so she can be released on parole. And we hear about this in her reports.
Due to the nature of what you will read herein, my advice to you is to go in as blind as you can. I will say a little about the book, trying to be careful. It is a dual timeline book, with the past injected into the present day narrative in exactly the right places for maximum impact and to progress the story. Within the two are various threads that start off independently but then eventually come together as we approach the end of the book, delivering quite a few shocks and surprises as they do.
In Eden Falls we have a setting that is almost a character in its own right, so integral it is to the story, but again, I will leave you to discover it, warts and all, for yourself.
The characters are well defined and there's a great eclectic mix of personalities. I took to Orianna right from the off and avidly followed her as she was trying to prove her innocence. I'd love to wax lyrical about them some more but spoilers prevent me. You'll get to meet them all for yourself soon enough, so.
If I had one criticism it is that the book is a wee bit on the long side and, on occasion, it was a bit long-winded and repetitive. That said, it didn't take me too long to get through it and the majority whizzed past.
All in all, a good solid read that will be going on my list of books I will revisit in Audible as soon as they are released. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

I’m a big fan of Vaseem Khan’s Malabar House series, which are historical mysteries set in India, so I was intrigued to try The Girl in Cell A which is a contemporary thriller set in small town America. I had high hopes and it was… fine, but I really missed his Malabar House heroine Persis - Orianna wasn’t nearly as relatable!

A rattling read with a twist, but I prefer the Indian books, sorry.

This was the first book I've read by this author and it will certainly not be the last.

This was a story so well thought and developed, it made my mind spin trying to figure out what the truth behind everything that happened was. And never in a million years I could have predicted the ending. The twist was amazing, it took me completely unprepared and it took me a while to get my head around it, because all I'd read to that point needed to be reframed completely. However, I felt the last couple of chapters after the twist dragged a bit - things definitely needed an explanation, but I thought it was just a bit too long and detailed.

And I love an open(ish) ending... making you think not all has really been said.

All in all, a great book I recommend.

Thank you NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The author, Vaseem Khan has written an incredibly creative and innovative book. I was totally blown away by the depth achieved.

I found it hard to cope with all of the many characters as the plot developed but I guess I managed, just.

I felt great empathy for the girl in Cell A and wondered how anyone could cope with the many life challenges that came here way. After an initial lukewarm feeling towards Amos (family patriarch) I did rather warm to the character, surprisingly!

The ending was unique, pretty sensational and rather clever. Overall an entertaining but challenging read.

Thank you for this ARC. I didn’t know what to expect having never read anything by this author before. I found it a bit slow at the beginning but the more I read I was hooked. It was tense, twisty and a great read. Would thoroughly recommend to others.

I’d heard such great things about this novel so was keen to read it. In all honesty, I did struggle with this book. It didn’t captivate me as expected and took me a while to get into the plot. I also found parts of it slow paced and thought the whole book could have been wrapped up quicker. Having said that, I’m glad I stuck with it as the ending was great. I would rate this 3.5 stars overall. Thank you to NetGalley, Hodder & Stoughton and the author for the chance to review.

Wow this book is a real crazy read that will have you question everyone and everything. I did not know who was responsible or why the murder had happened and then the ending just blew my mind. I can’t really say anything without spoiling this but this is a great read. Do not miss this one!!

This was a very intense and addictive read all the way through, it kept me hooked with the exhilirating twists and turns.

Orianna Negi was convicted of murder at the age of 17 – her story became so famous she is known as The Girl in Cell A. But Orianna claims she is innocent of the murder of Gideon Wycleric and has no recollection of the events of that fateful day.
Growing up on the estate of Amos Wycleric and his family in the small town of Eden Falls, founded by Amos’ father Nathaniel, where her mother Christine was housekeeper Orianna lived amongst the powerful family and their secrets. When Annie Ledet a psychologist is tasked with evaluating Orianna 18 years later for her appeal to be released, she discovers there is more to this story than meets the eye – this is a tale full of secrets, sex, lies and the fight for power. What really happened to Gideon? And who is responsible?
This was the first book of Vaseem’s that I had read, so I had no idea what to expect. Orianna’s story grips you from the first page, and I genuinely had no idea where I was being lead. The majority of the book is written from the perspective of Orianna both past and present, and Annie. This gave the story an interesting narrative, and you don’t understand why it was written in this way until the very end when all becomes clear. Very clever twist at the end, I did not see that twist coming in a million years! It’s clear Vaseem spent a lot of time plotting and writing this book, the level of detail is apparent throughout. What I will say is I felt the book started slowly, and the tension built as I read on and got more engaged it kept me interested which I liked. I thought it was absolutely fantastic, and I really enjoyed it!

This was hard to get through - I'm not sure the level of description of settings or internal monologues was required as found it made this quite stodgy to read.
The title of the book is misleading - as seems to position as some kind of celebrity criminal but without any narrative to back this up, rather focussing on a domestic crime set in the past that needs to be unravelled when the supposed perpetrator is released. Oriana turns amateur slueth to clear up the crime for which she was sent to jail and so goes on a really long and detailed journey through the local families and history, loads of red herrings and motives get turned up but it's just all too humdrum for me I'm afraid.
The actual murderer wasn't that exciting as a finale - and so a really weird section was added on to the end that implied that one of the victims was actually a construct of Oriana's to protect her mind. The book was already long enough as it is without that, which couldn't really save the ending anyway.
Not for me I'm afraid.

A clever, well written story but much too long drawn out for me and the ending just messed with my head!

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

I tried to love this but it was so drawn out and the ending was such an eye roll.

The premise was great, a woman set to clear her name of a murder she swears she didn't commit. It would have worked if it was a puncher read. I didn't get pulled into it the way I wanted to be

This is a great book. Extremely well written with a storyline that kept me reading until the small hours and the ending was absolutely brilliant! I highly recommend it

The first book I’ve read by Vaseem Khan and I wasn’t disappointed.

Gripping from the start- At 17, Orianna finds herself accused of the murder of Gideon Wyclerc.

His daughter and her half sister Grace also goes missing on the same night.

Strangely, Orianna has no recollection of the events surrounding Gideon’s murder. Psychologist and specialist in dissociative amnesia, Annie Ledet is employed to get to the truth.

After serving her 18 year prison sentence, Orianna is no closer to reaching the truth and returns to her home town and scene of the crime, Eden Falls.

Needless to say she is not welcomed by the townspeople or the influential Wyclercs but her determination to reach the truth is infallible.

A brilliant slow burning and tense novel. I’d recommend to anyone who loved Where the Crawdads sing.

there are some authors who i think just have books written into the veins. because i dont know how they think, imagine and then write these books with such effortless smooooothness. Vaseem does that with this book. and i cannot wait to see if it follows their other books too!
this book is full of everything you could wish for in a thriller. it packs a punch. and it packs questions and questionable character galore. i couldnt recommend this book enough,
in this book we have our prisoner Orianna who has always says she is innocent of a murder that occurred 18 years earlier. but if she didnt kill Gedeon then who did. and where did his daughter Grace disappear to the day of the killing?
but although she says she is innocent Orianna cant actually remember what happened so Annie a forensic psychologist is bought in to find out. because there is a murderer out there is she is telling the truth.
but Orianna grew up in Eden Falls and there is a lot to be said and not wanted to be said about this place. its ruled on seemingly kept secrets and scandals. there is so much power and uncomfortable layers to this place its hard to know who or what are innocent or goodies or badies. but could one of them have committed murder. is there way more to this than everyone first thought...or was covered up?
the surprises kept coming with this book in all the best ways.

This won't be the longest review in the world as I think you would get the most out of the book by going in blind.

I had conflicting thoughts going into this. On the one hand, I think Vaseem writes a fantastic book. But on the other hand, I am a vocal non-fan of books longer than about 400 or so pages. And so at nearly 600 pages, I was already a little concerned. But all in all, I think it warrants being that long. That's my main issue with long books is they feel dragged out and don't warrant the length, but this one does. I think the magic comes from the backstory and the characters' history, which helps set up the reveals.

It flits between Orianna in the present day, and Annie in the past, with other characters and time periods interspersed in between. This could have been really confusing but I think it worked perfectly.

Owing to its long page length, I did expect to slow through it, thinking I'd been reading for ages only to find I'm about 5% of the way through. But it was far speedier than I thought it would be which is good, and before I knew it I was halfway through. I gave myself two days to read this; I managed it in three, which for 600 pages I was pleasantly surprised. It completely sucks you in and it's so hard to tear yourself away from it.

It has such convincing, human, well rounded, multi-layered characters - not all of them nice. No-one is 100% a goodie and 100% a baddie, there's a bit of both in everyone which made it more fun to read.

It reminded me a bit of Chris Whitaker's All the Colours of the Dark, another book I worried would be too long. Two epic stories written by two epic storytellers.

It's an interesting story to read when the characters don't even know who did it. The protagonist is aware she might have done it but she doesn't know. And so the reader ends up trying to work it out at the same time as her. And for that reason, we feel sorry for her but we're conflicted because we don't know if she deserves our sympathy or not. No spoilers, but let me tell you - I did not see the surprise coming.

I believe this is Vaseem's first standalone crime/thriller novel and it really does promise such an excellent future.

This book is a departure from the usual Indian background to Vaseem Khans other novels and a first attempt at a psychological thriller. Psychological thrillers are my favourite genre and I have to admit that this book does not tick all the boxes of a good psychological thriller. It does have some twists and well developed characters but lacks the necessary pace of a good psychological thriller. I can see why some other reviewers have registered a DNF as the book was rather drawn out. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to ARC this book.

Absolutely gripping story - I couldn't put this down. I enjoyed the brooding atmosphere that Vaseem Khan created with intriguing characters, a toxic family and fabulous twist.

The premise of this book really intrigued me and I wanted to love it but unfortunately I had to DNF at 23%. I think it is definitely a me problem but this book just didnt grip me enough and I was bored.