UNLESS Neil Basu chooses to write his memoirs, perhaps one day someone else will write a novel based on his career.

After all, Jeffrey Archer’s bestselling new book, Nothing Ven tured, has been inspired by a real life officer from Scotland Yard. At 51, Basu is now in the third tier of command at the Metropolitan Police, having joined the force at 24 after taking a degree in economics from Nottingham University and solving a great many murder cases along the way.

“I am the son of an Indian immigrant,” he told Eastern Eye. “My dad was a doctor born and raised in Calcutta. He went to school there, qualified as a doctor there, came to this country in 1961; married a white woman, my mother, a Welsh woman who is still alive.”

Assistant commissioner Basu is the “National Lead for Counter Terrorism Policing in the UK” and works closely with Sir Andrew Parker, director general of MI5, to keep the nation safe. Basu’s portfolio “also includes responsibility for the investigation of war crime, Official Secrets Act offences and protection of VIPs, royals, embassies, parliament and aviation policing”.

One novel he has read in the past 12 months is Abir Mukherjee’s detective thriller set in Calcutta in 1919, A Rising Man, which introduces an unlikely partnership between Capt Sam Wyndham of the Imperial Police force and his Cambridge-educated assistant, Sgt Surendranath (“Surrender-not”) Banerjee. “I really loved it,” said Basu.

“I don’t get to read for pleasure very often but I really enjoyed it. I was hoping to get the author to sign it for me. I very much want to read his next book.” Basu has got some catching up to do since Mukherjee has already published two other books in the series – A Necessary Evil and Smoke and