This article examines how disability and gender intersect in contemporary Malayalam crime fiction through Sreeparvathy’s Violet Pookkalude Maranam (2021), which introduces Aleena Ben John, a wheelchair-using woman, as its central detective. The study situates Sreeparvathy’s work within Kerala’s evolving literary landscape, where disability has rarely occupied a central position in fiction and is often represented through metaphors of dependence, tragedy, or moral burden. Drawing on Fiona Kumari Campbell’s theory of ableism and key insights from Feminist Disability Studies, the article analyses how Aleena’s narrative oscillates between empowerment and internalised shame. While her role as a detective appears to challenge patriarchal and ableist frameworks, her self-perception and limited social agency reveal deep-seated cultural anxieties about the disabled female body. Through a close reading of the novel’s narrative structure and psychological interiority, the article argues that Violet Pookkalude Maranam both expands and constrains the possibilities of representing disabled womanhood in Malayalam literature. By exploring disability not as metaphor but as lived experience, this study contributes to understanding how gendered embodiment and genre conventions shape the politics of visibility and agency in Kerala’s popular fiction.