About
About Aftab Arbiyani
Psychological mystery fiction, written by an engineer who has always been drawn to closed systems and the secrets they keep.
The writer
Engineer by day, mystery writer by night.
By day, Aftab Arbiyani builds software. He is a technical lead based in India, with more than five years spent designing and building large-scale backend systems, and he leads engineering work at SolGuruz. He studied Computer Engineering at Government Engineering College, Bhavnagar.
By night, he writes the kind of puzzle that can't be solved with code. The Probationers is his debut novel, and a second mystery is already finding its way to the page.
Why mysteries
The same instincts, a different kind of system.
A good mystery and a good piece of software are built from the same materials: a closed system, a hidden logic, and the way a single constraint changes everything downstream. Years of tracing how sealed systems behave under pressure, and where their quiet failure points hide, turn out to be unlikely but useful training for a locked-room murder.
It is why his fiction keeps returning to closed, self-contained worlds, and to the private bargains people make to stay inside them. He writes for readers who believe a mystery should earn its ending: every clue on the page, and a solution that feels inevitable only once you have seen it.
The book
The Probationers
His debut is a murder mystery set inside a snowbound Benedictine monastery in the Umbrian hills: six novices, one body, and sixty-four years of buried secrets. When the novice master is found dead beneath the bell tower, Sister Aude Bellamy must separate accident from intention before the snow clears.
For readers
Where to start, and what's next.
New readers should start with The Probationers, a snowbound monastery mystery built around a murder beneath a bell tower. Another mystery is slowly finding its way to the page.
For essays, craft notes, and launch updates, read the blog or join the reader list.