Hey, everyone, Marla here! One of my favorite things about mystery conventions is meeting other mystery authors and readers, and last fall at Bouchercon I had the good fortune to meet today’s guest, author of THE MIDNIGHT TAXI, Yosha Gunasekera. For starters, she’s just a lovely human, and also, her new book looks amazing! Take it away, Yosha!

I take a stroll in my neighborhood and the view is absurdly beautiful. The World Trade Center and the Brooklyn Bridge shimmer in the distance. People bustle in and out of bakeries and restaurants, clutching coffee cups and paper bags with delicious freshly-baked croissants like sacred objects. I feel unbelievably lucky to live in NYC—right up until a pigeon poops on me and a rat barrels out of a trash can, a donut clenched proudly in its mouth, snapping me back to reality.

My debut mystery novel, The Midnight Taxi, comes out on February 10, 2026, and it’s very much a love letter to New York City—and to the immigrants, service workers, and local restaurants that make this place so special. The release also coincides with ten years of living in New York, a milestone I genuinely never thought I’d reach.

See, I’m a small-town girl. I grew up in rural Appalachia, where everyone knew everyone else. A quick grocery store run always took an extra thirty minutes because you were guaranteed to run into at least five people you knew. My parents proudly referred to themselves as country bumpkins, and honestly, I wore that identity pretty comfortably.

New York City, by contrast, seemed way too cool, too expensive, and far too big-city for someone like me. Every visit felt overwhelming—especially when I’d emerge from Madison Square Garden and immediately be assaulted by a sensory overload of sounds, smells, and flashing lights. NYC felt like a place meant for other people.

But then something unexpected happened. When I made New York my temporary home (emphasis on temporary, or so I thought), I fell in love and have been a proud New Yorker ever since.

The Midnight Taxi reflects that same adoration. The novel moves through all five boroughs—each one distinct, vibrant, and culturally rich in its own way—and writing it pushed me to explore corners of the city I hadn’t yet discovered. Jackson Heights for its incredible South Asian food. Arthur Avenue in the Bronx for Italian comfort classics. Staten Island for my favorite Sri Lankan restaurants. Manhattan’s Chinatown for the best pork buns and dumplings I’ve ever had. And my home borough of Brooklyn, where you can find a little bit of everything if you’re willing to wander.

Along the way, I realized that New York truly has something for everyone. Yes, there are pizza rats and pigeons with terrible aim. But there’s also a staggering diversity of food, cultures, and communities—ones that made a small-town Appalachian girl feel, somehow, like she belonged.

And that might be the most New York thing of all.

Readers, what’s a place that you feel deeply connected to — whether you live there or not?

About the Author:

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.