A heinous crime has been committed-seven girls are brutally gang-raped by a group of upper-caste men. As news quickly spreads, their village comes under the national spotlight; journalists, policemen and ministers filter in, each trying to get to the bottom of the truth and find the culprits. Long oppressed, the girls from the minority community refuse to utter the names of the men; feigning ignorance and burdened by shame, they grapple with notions of honour and purity.
Lustre presents to us the portrait of a society-of a village afflicted by communal strains-as tensions rise with the police force coming under pressure, afraid the villagers will be seduced into joining the local Naxalite movement. As things take a violent turn, the novel offers a glimpse into the true situation in some parts of India as well as the collective psyche of a community-their thoughts on propriety, violence, subjugation, and, most importantly, revolution.
Catagory: Crime, Thriller & Mystery
Operation Haygreeva
The C3 unit in the Intelligence Bureau is the node of the country’s counter-terrorism operations. At its discreet headquarters in New Delhi, intelligence officers work hard behind the scenes to thwart threats, keep track of targets and make sure the country is kept safe. When Mumbai becomes the victim of a series of horrific bomb blasts, Ravi Kumar, the chief of C3 known for his unorthodox but brilliant methods, is entrusted with the responsibility to neutralize the threat posed by a new terrorist organization called Lashkar-e-Hind.
Together with his three young recruits, Mihir, Jose and Cyrus, Ravi uncovers a plot that is much larger and threatens the very fabric of the country’s peace and stability. Through their network of agents, covert missions, tabs on the Hawala market and cultivation of contacts, they must tread carefully to protect the citizens of India. And they must do it all from the shadows, navigating the murky corridors of espionage and intelligence services.
Fighter Cock
A desolate land.
A debauched patriarch.
An upstart in search of a reputation.
A man running away from one.
Shikargarh, central India. An untamed wilderness ruled by a dissolute raja with a passion for sex, drugs and cockfighting. The raja’s Karianath fighter cocks are the undisputed champions of the area – but their reign is challenged by the new Aseel fighters imported by Teja, his bastard son, who also schemes to usurp his position.
Into this world arrives Sheru, a brooding stranger hired to work for the raja. As Sheru negotiates this wild land, he finds himself getting pulled into a deadly vortex of events that threaten to derail his destiny. But Sheru is a dangerous man with a dark past, and when he unleashes his fury, all hell breaks loose.
The Break of Dawn (A thrilling page-turner set amidst the 1857 rebellion)
“Unconstrained, unlike a historian, the fiction writer Khan Mahboob Tarzi invents a moment in the history of 1857 and imbues it with high romance and action.”-Rita Kothari, translator, writer, and professor of English, Ashoka University
“[The 1857] rebellion has been the subject of scholarly attention and debate, but the events have not drawn too much literary attention in terms of novels, plays, etc. It is thus good to read this novel and to have it in translation.”-Rudrangshu Mukherjee, chancellor and professor of history, Ashoka University
-A thriller and romance set amidst the raging battle to free India of the British in 1857.
-Brings into focus the lesser-known popular literature in Urdu around the 1857 mutiny.
-The translator, Prof. Ali Khan Mahmudabad, was led to the book out of personal interest, as it includes an account of the erstwhile Mahmudabad royal family’s role in the 1857 revolt.
-Introduces readers to Khan Mahboob Tarzi, a prolific author who wrote over a hundred novels on history, politics, science-fiction, romance and erotica.
It is the searing month of June. The rebellion against the British has just begun and Awadh is up in flames. Hindus and Muslims have joined hands to overthrow the foreign rulers and set India free. Some Indian rulers have started to enter into alliances to fight the firangis, while others have thrown in their lot with the foreigners. Amid all this, Riyaz Khan, a young soldier from the army of the Raja of Mahmudabad, saves a group of Britishers from fellow ‘mutineers’ and escorts them to the safety of Lucknow. In this group is Alice, who falls in love with Riyaz and eventually becomes an informer for the rebels.
The Break of Dawn, originally published in Urdu under the title Aghaaz-e-Sahar, is a thrilling page-turner and a reminder of a time when Indians of all classes and creeds came together to fight for the honour and freedom of their homeland.
That Night
What happens when an innocent prank goes horribly wrong?
Natasha, Riya, Anjali and Katherine were best friends in college – each different from the other yet inseparable – until that night.
It was the night that began with a bottle of whisky and a game of Ouija but ended with the death of Sania, their unlikeable hostel mate. The friends vowed never to discuss that fateful night, a pact that had kept their friendship and guilt dormant for the last twenty years.
But now, someone has begun to mess with them, threatening to reveal the truth that only Sania knew. Is it a hacker playing on their guilt or has Sania’s ghost really returned to avenge her death?
As the faceless enemy closes in on them, the friends come together once again to recount what really happened that night. But when the story is retold by each of them, the pieces don’t fit. Because none of them is telling the whole truth . . .
That Night is a dark, twisted tale of friendship and betrayal that draws you in and confounds you at every turn.
The Homecoming and Other Stories
What happens when a lifelong disciple finds out a dark secret about his guru? Can a thief ever reform his ways? How do you solve a murder with no witnesses?
Padma Bhushan awardee and bestselling author Sri M sees the world in a different light. He sees the good, the bad and sometimes the supernatural. From horror stories to tales that will shock you out of your wits and pull at your heartstrings, there is something for everyone in this eclectic collection. In his quintessential no-holds barred style, Sri M’s The Homecoming and Other Stories urges you to delve deep into the human spirit and get a glimpse of why people do the things they do.
Night Of The Krait
Terrorists from the Free Kashmir Front hijack a coach on the Shatabdi Express with forty people, just outside Madras. A nephew of the defence minister is among the passengers. Within the first five minutes they have killed a railway guard and caused the authorities to panic. The Special Operations Force, a team of crack commandos from the Army, is called in to deal with the crisis. Heading the operation is Lieutenant Colonel Rajan Menon Raja who is soon convinced that these are not ordinary terrorists. They have the backing of a highly intelligent but crooked head. He dubs the ruthless genius the Krait. Raja leads his men in a brilliant rescue operation in Madras, but he knows this is only the opening gambit in a sinister plan devised by the terrorist mastermind; the Krait will strike again. And he realizes with dismay that the enemy might be one of them . . .
Cross Your Heart, Take My Name: Take a plunge into Romantic Suspense, a Must Read Thriller & Mystery by Novoneel Chakraborty
Garv Roy Gill and Yahvi Kothari meet at an airport lounge by chance. Six months later they find themselves consumed by the proverbial once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. Bored with their mundane daily routine, their adventurous streak makes them decide, one day, to escape the present and begin a new reality somewhere far, far away. Just that the day they are supposed to meet and escape, Yahvi doesn’t turn up. Then she doesn’t respond to Garv’s phone calls or messages. And mysteriously Yahvi vanishes altogether.
Days later, as a grieving Garv stumbles upon her Instagram profile, which he didn’t know existed, he is shocked to realize that her every post is probably a clue to the truth behind her disappearance. Except, the more he unearths the meandering truth, the more he learns about a certain side of Yahvi which changes the way he saw her. And the way he understood love.
Cross Your Heart, Take My Name is a beguiling tale about urban loneliness, fickle relationships and our need for companionship as depicted by the twisted journey of two individuals, caught up in their own emotional plight, blurring the lines between crime and sin.
White Mughals
James Achilles Kirkpatrick landed on the shores of eighteenth-century India as an ambitious soldier of the East India Company. Although eager to make his name in the subjection of a nation, it was he who was conquered—not by an army but by a Muslim Indian princess. Kirkpatrick was the British Resident at the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad when in 1798 he glimpsed Khair un-Nissa—’Most Excellent among Women’—the great-niece of the Nizam’s Prime Minister. He fell in love with Khair, and overcame many obstacles to marry her—not least of which was the fact that she was locked away in purdah and engaged to a local nobleman. Eventually, while remaining Resident, Kirkpatrick converted to Islam, and according to Indian sources even became a double-agent working for the Hyderabadis against the East India Company. Possessing all the sweep of a great nineteenth-century novel, White Mughals is a remarkable tale of harem politics, secret assignations, court intrigue, religious disputes and espionage.
Byomkesh Bakshi (1)
Byomkesh Bakshi’s appeal as the self-styled inquisitor, a detective not by profession but by passion, found him a dedicated following among generations of readers. This collection of stories, all set in Kolkata of the 1950s and 1960s, brings together four mysteries that put the sleuth’s remarkable mental agility to the ultimate test. In ‘the Menagerie’ (adapted by master film-maker Satyajit Ray for his 1967 film Chiriakhana) Byomkesh cracks a strange case involving broken motor parts, a seemingly natural death and the peculiar inhabitants of Golap Colony who seem capable of doing just about anything to safeguard the secrets of their tainted pasts. In ‘the Jewel Case’ he investigates the mysterious disappearance of a priceless necklace, while in ‘the Will That Vanished’ he solves a baffling riddle to fulfil the last wish of a close friend. And, in ‘the Quills of the Porcupine’, the shrewd detective is in his element as he expertly foils the sinister plans of a ruthless opportunist. Sreejata Guha’s translation captures brilliantly the thrill and ingenuity of Byomkesh’s exploits just as it does Saradindu Bandyopadhyay’s remarkable portrayal of a city struggling to overcome its colonial past and come into its own.