"The Midnight Taxi" by author Yosha Gunasekera is a Club Calvi spotlight book
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Club Calvi is spotlighting a new mystery that had us hooked and that critics are calling "marvelous," "charming," and "well crafted."
"The Midnight Taxi" is Yosha Gunasekera's first book. It's about a New York City yellow cab driver who picks up her last fare of the night, only to discover her passenger dead in the back seat when they arrive at his destination. She told Mary Calvi that having a book published is a dream come true.
"I've wanted to write a novel for so long," Gunasekera said. "I've been a practicing attorney for 10 years, so to be able to use my creative side, a different side of my brain, to write fiction has just been so amazing."
The book follows New York City taxi cab driver Siriwathi Perera.
"Of course she's arrested as the obvious and only suspect," Gunasekera told Mary. "She must fight, with her public defender, for her life. She's investigating the case across all five boroughs and Roosevelt Island, and she has to find clues to find the real murderer and to save herself.
Gunasekera worked as a public defender and used her experiences as inspiration.
"I was a public defender in Manhattan for six years and currently work in the Innocence Project," she said. "I represent individuals who are wrongly accused of crimes they did not commit. I've used both of those experiences, over 10 years of being a lawyer, to inform the book. I want the reader to have a real understanding of the criminal legal system from the perspective of both the public defender, but also the people who are ensnared in the criminal legal system. I really wanted to give readers that authentic viewpoint. But it is also a mystery. It is fiction. So at certain times you have to suspend your belief. I really wanted to keep it a fun mystery, a page turner. I wanted readers to be engaged but also learn something along the way."
Gunasekera wrote some of the book while waiting to talk to clients in New York jails.
"As part of my job representing individuals, I'm in jails and in prisons in the city and across the state. When you are a busy lawyer, you really have to find time to write anywhere and that includes in a jail waiting room. You can't bring in cellphones. You can't bring in those things that commonly could distract you. You're sometimes left with your client's files, which you've already reviewed, and an empty yellow note pad. Sometimes I would just find myself just writing parts of a chapter longhand. Then I would go home and type that up," she said.
Gunasekera described the book as a love letter to New York City and the service people who make it run.
"I was working at night court one day, which is the late night arraignment shift, representing New Yorkers. It was 1:00 a.m. I got to the curb. There was a yellow cab waiting, and he started asking me about my day. We started talking about true crime and it was this rare moment of human connection with this yellow cab driver. As we sat there talking, I started to wonder about the lives of these incredibly important service workers who get busy New Yorkers to and from where they need to go. That really formed the basis of the novel," she said.
She also has a personal connection to cabbies.
"I also married into a family of cab drivers. My husband's father was a cab driver. His father was a cab driver. There was so much family lore," Ganesekera said.
The book takes readers to parts of the city that Gunasekera said are not often visited.
"I think people think of New York City as just Times Square or Madison Square Garden. There are so many incredible restaurants, so much diversity in all five of New York City's boroughs, I wanted to highlight all of those."
Gunasekera has already written a sequel.
You can read an excerpt and get "The Midnight Taxi" below.
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"The Midnight Taxi" by Yosha Gunasekera
From the publisher: Siriwathi Perera doesn't quite know where she's going in life. She never expected to be a taxicab driver in New York City, struggling to make ends meet and still living with her parents at twenty-eight. The true-crime podcasts that keep Siri company as she drives don't do much to make up for the legal career she imagined for herself, or the brother she's grieving.
When public defender Amaya Fernando gets into her cab, they make a quick connection through their shared Sri Lankan roots. Siri, whose social circle is limited to her grade-school best friend, Alex, thinks things might finally be looking up with this new potential friendship. But she's suddenly dropped into her own true crime when she discovers her next passenger murdered in the backseat, and she has to call Amaya sooner than she'd expected.
Pinned as the obvious and only suspect, and desperate to clear her name, Siri chases down leads across the boroughs of New York City with Amaya's help. But with her court date looming, they have just five days to find out who really killed the midnight passenger—or Siri's life will be over before she can even truly live it.
Yosha Gunasekera lives in New York City.
"The Midnight Taxi" by Yosha Gunasekera (ThriftBooks) $16
Excerpt: "The Midnight Taxi" by Yosha Gunasekera
Chapter 3
I rub my eyes, sure that once I do the man will be very much alive and well without a knife sticking out of his chest. I've got to stop listening to so many true crime podcasts. I close my eyes and open them. I see the blood. A thick trickle from the wound. I reach over to check his pulse, which confirms what I already know but can't understand. This man is dead.
Bile rises in my throat. The descriptions of dead bodies on the true crime podcasts gross me out, but to see it in person is something else entirely. In just hours, the man's body will start to stiffen, a fact I wish I didn't know right now. I think I'm going to puke.
How did this happen? We were in a locked moving vehicle. He was breathing when he got into the taxi. Had he killed himself? Stabbing yourself in the heart in a taxi seemed like an awful way to go. Was he somehow holding a knife and stabbed himself when I broke suddenly to avoid hitting that woman? No, that seems impossible. Right? Right? Out of the corner of my eye, I see a police officer approaching and my stomach lurches in that uncomfortable way like when the doctor asks me if I'm exercising and eating healthy. How can I explain this? There is no explanation, at least not one that makes sense.
I look around the car. Other than the dead body in the back seat I don't notice anything... except wait-the man's backpack is gone.
As the officer moves closer, I think again about the time I'd been stopped by the police for a supposed minor traffic infraction that hadn't really occurred. My pulse hammers away like a drill and my breath becomes quick and shallow. They hadn't given me the benefit of the doubt then and they certainly wouldn't do it now with a dead body in my back seat.
I look down at my hands, realizing they feel sticky and warm. I literally have blood on my hands. How did that get there? I shut the door and clench my fists to hide the blood, readying myself for what is to come.
"EXCUSE ME," the officer yells as he walks towards me. The officer looks angry, ready to arrest me . . . or worse. Is the officer reaching towards his gun? Should I put up my hands and yell "don't shoot?" Would that even matter, as it hadn't on so many occasions for others before? I can't even speak as panic courses through every part of my body. I speak English very well, but
I can only think in my native tongue of Sinhalese.
The officer continues to advance towards me, and yet I cannot move.
"Sir... I mean, ma'am!" The police officer seems momentarily stunned that I'm a female cabbie. "You can't park here. Even if you drive a yellow cab. The taxi stand is up there for new passengers. MOVE!"
I look at the officer open-mouthed, trying to form something to say in response. With all the might I can muster, I force my feet to move and quickly get into the front seat. I take a glance at the back seat, hoping the man is no longer there. Somehow me hallucinating the whole thing is still a better scenario than reality.
My mind is racing with thoughts of what to do next as I drive off before pulling into the short-term parking lot, taking up two parking spots in my haste. I am on my way to a full-blown panic attack as I circle my car. I try to steady my breathing again and I squeeze my eyes shut. I think of my brother, and my breaths and heartbeat slow enough that I am out of cardiac arrest territory and can think a little more clearly.
I put my hand inside my pocket to grab my phone and call the police when I feel it. Her business card. Amaya Fernando. The lawyer. The criminal defense lawyer. I quickly dial her number, saying a prayer that she answers her phone at this hour.
Chapter 4
"OH MY GOD!" Amaya screams as she opens the back door to my cab. She's just gotten out of her own taxi. Maybe the last one she'll ever take after seeing this. She curses under her breath in Sinhalese.
I couldn't muster the words to tell her everything on the phone. I merely said something bad happened and that I needed a lawyer quickly like I was the very shady criminal defendant on an episode of Law and Order.
I was prepared to give Amaya all the reasons she needed to leave the comfort of her warm bed at 3 a.m. and travel across the city for some random person. Despite my vague pleading, to my surprise she simply replied "ok" and the line went dead. Now, here she is. I consider asking her why she'd show up for a virtual stranger (who very well could be a killer) but I'm not trying to push my luck.
"Why did you kill him? Did he attack you? Was it self-defense?" Amaya quizzes me, as she backs away from both the body and, understandably, me. She'd make a great police detective on one of my podcasts. Her interrogation style is scary to say the least. I wonder if she'll pull out a flashlight and shine it in my face next.
"I didn't do it; I swear I didn't." How original, I think, but it is the truth.
Amaya looks at me and must see a super freaked out girl in front of her because her face instantly softens.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to grill you. It's sort of second nature - me trying to get to the bottom of whatever crazy situation I've been dealt."
This is a crazy situation. There is a dead body in the back of my taxicab. The man was alive when I picked him up and dead on arrival? Who else could have done it? I can't think about anything right now other than the dead man in my back seat. The feel of the dried blood on my hands. The gut-turning dread. This is a circumstance where a normal person would probably cry, but I have a rule about crying in public. Don't do it.
Amaya puts a hand on my shoulder and says with enough sincerity I can almost believe it: "You're going to be ok. I'm here."
Excerpted from The Midnight Taxi by Yosha Gunasekera Copyright © 2026 by Yosha Gunasekera. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.