Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-Reader Match” where we introduce you to authors you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present Yosha Gunasekera!
Writes:
Traditional mysteries with heart, sharp humor, and a side of social justice. My debut, THE MIDNIGHT TAXI, is a love letter to immigrants, service workers, and New York City with a dead body in the backseat.
When Sri Lankan–American cab driver Sirirwathi Perera picks up a passenger, she’s hoping for a decent tip. Instead, she reaches the destination and discovers he’s been murdered – and she’s the only suspect. Now she and her public defender, Amaya, have to race through all five boroughs to solve the crime themselves before the legal system locks in the wrong ending.
About:
By day, I’m an attorney at the Innocence Project, fighting for people serving significant prison time for crimes they didn’t commit. Before that, I was a public defender, and those years in the trenches heavily inspired the legal reality behind this book.
Yes, my mystery requires a little suspension of belief, but I tried to be honest about how the system can stack the odds against people of color and lower socioeconomic backgrounds. I also teach at Princeton University about wrongful convictions and documentary filmmaking.
I wrote this book in stolen moments, like waiting for my cases to be called in court, in jail waiting rooms, and very early in the morning.
What I’m looking for in my ideal reader match
● You love mysteries that make you laugh, tug at your heart, and maybe sneak in a little knowledge about the realities of the criminal legal system.
● You’re curious about other cultures.
● You enjoy meeting quirky and relatable characters.
● You love page-turning and fast-paced mysteries you could read in a day.
● And you are serious about food.
What to expect if we’re compatible
● Self-deprecating jokes
● So. Much. Eating.
● NYC recommendations off the beaten path.
● Love-hate relationship with true crime.
● Dead bodies (only on the page though!)
THE MIDNIGHT TAXI by Yosha Gunasekera
When the last fare of the night turns up dead in her backseat, a Sri Lankan American taxi driver works off the clock to clear her name in this mystery novel by debut author Yosha Gunasekera.
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.
Mystery Woman Sleuth [ Berkley, On Sale: February 10, 2026, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9798217187539 / eISBN: 9798217187546 ]
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About Yosha Gunasekera
Yosha Gunasekera is a Sri Lankan-American attorney who represents people who have spent decades behind bars for crimes they did not commit. She teaches a course at Princeton University focused on wrongful conviction and exoneration. Yosha is a former Manhattan public defender and has written and spoken extensively on the criminal legal system. She lives in New York City with her husband.
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