Nawaz Merchant is the 2019 winner of the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award. She has three degrees in Economics, a Master’s degree in Health Policy and has worked in business analysis for two decades. She teaches at Rutgers University's Osher Institute. She is New York chapter president of the Mystery Writers of America. Murder in Old Bombay is the first novel of her historical mystery series from Macmillan publishers, featuring a pair of immigrant sleuths.