Abir Mukherjee: ‘Frederick Forsyth and Jeffrey Archer were

The crime writer on embracing atheism after reading Christopher Hitchens, the allure of Jhumpa Lahiri, and falling under George Orwell’s spell

My earliest reading memory
An Enid Blyton – the Famous Five or the Sadistic Seven or whatever. I must have been about six. We were on holiday in Kolkata from Scotland for what felt like eternity. All I remember was the gang solving the crime du jour and returning home for tea with toast and crumpets and jam. I’d gone many weeks without toast and jam at that point and the thought of them had a deep effect on me.

My favourite book growing up
I want to say something profound like The Communist Manifesto, but while I did read that as a teenager, I got bored. The truth is, I was much more into thrillers – Frederick Forsyth and Jeffrey Archer were my gateway drugs into reading for pleasure. Back in the 80s, they seemed impossibly exotic, transporting me to Monte Carlo and LA and Hong Kong, a world away from Glasgow on a dank weekend.