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.
Aftab Arbiyani is a software engineer and technical lead based in India, who spends his days architecting systems and his nights building the kind of puzzles that can't be solved with code.
He has spent more than five years designing and building large-scale backend systems, and today leads engineering work at SolGuruz. He studied Computer Engineering at Government Engineering College, Bhavnagar.
The same instincts that make good software (closed systems, hidden logic, and the way a single constraint changes everything downstream) are the ones he brings to a locked-room mystery.
He writes for readers who believe a mystery should earn its ending.
The book
The Probationers
His debut novel is a murder mystery set inside a snowbound Benedictine monastery in the Umbrian hills, where six novices, one body, and sixty-four years of buried secrets converge. It draws on his long fascination with closed systems, hidden logic, and the question of what a person will do to stay inside the life they have built for themselves.
At the Abbazia di San Gerolamo, the Great Silence should protect the life of the community. Instead, it hides a murder. Sister Aude Bellamy arrives to separate accident from intention, obedience from fear, and confession from survival.
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.