He was a police officer!
The head of a police station, he was after the life of his sub-inspector because of a personal conflict between them. Hot-headed and quarrelsome, he called himself a black serpent (kaala naag), who had the most lethal bite, killing a man in just one strike. And then he struck.
The kind of thriller that will send a shudder down your spine and make your skin crawl as if a snake was uncoiling before your eyes. Unputdownable.
Five years ago, Arjun Kadam was a cop, a rising star in the ranks of the Mumbai Encounter Squad. A tragic event sends him spiralling into depression and drug abuse and Kadam is reduced to a pale shadow of his former self when he becomes the victim of a hit-and-run that also claims the life of a street urchin. Waking from a month-long coma, Kadam is determined to catch the culprit. He’s rapidly sucked into the deep, dark heart of Mumbai, from the glitzy tinsel of Bollywood to the dank depths of the Mumbai Underworld, where the line between the police and the criminals has been blurred beyond recognition. Obsessed with his mission, Kadam sets off a desperate gambit of deadly intrigue and deception that pits him against the very machine of violence and corruption he once helped create.
Sita, detective Lalli’s niece-and occasional Watson-runs into former classmate Anais at Mumbai airport. Even as the friends catch up, Anais hands over a cardboard box she is carrying to a waiting woman, nonchalantly informing the traumatized lady that the box contains her son’s ashes. Some days later, Anais herself turns up dead in the slimy Mithi River, a pink nylon rope wrapped ritually around her neck.
24 Patwardhan Cross. The solitary bone that surfaces in the garden there doesn’t mean much to police surgeon Dr Q or Inspector Savio. But Lalli, who collects curiosities, finds it curious. Things get curiouser when a dying gigolo whispers the address in terror, and curiouser still when a mummified finger with a chic manicure turns up in the same garden. Lalli might have ignored these curiosities had there not been a child at the heart of the matter. As she investigates what makes this garden grow, Lalli uncovers a gruesome tale.
NAME: Aryaman Khanna.
PROFILE: Ex-intelligence officer, Phoenix 5 division, Intelligence and Research Wing.
STATUS: Released from a high-security prison in Lakshadweep after serving a seven-year sentence for a botched counterterrorism operation led by Director General Amarjyot Bhushan.
KNOWN FAMILY: A mother, a son and a wife, who was attacked before she could publish an exposé about a bioweapon in her newspaper.
CURRENT LOCATION: Last seen heading to Mumbai in pursuit of his wife’s attackers and on a top-secret comeback mission.
MISSION: Foil the bioweapon strike an international terror group has been planning to carry out in Mumbai on the anniversary of 26/11.
The Phoenix tells a dystopian tale of espionage and global terror, of sleeper cells and double agents, of biological warfare and suicide attacks. But at its heart there’s a message of hope and one man’s love for his family and country.
AN EXPLOSIVE NEW NOVEL THAT ASKS DIFFICULT QUESTIONS ABOUT MODERN IDENTITY IN A WORLD ON FIRE
Anita Rose lives in a concrete block in one of Karachi’s biggest slums, languishing in poverty with her mother and older brother. Determined to escape her stifling circumstances, she struggles to educate herself, scribbling down English words-gleaned from watching TV or taught by her elderly neighbour-in her most prized possession: a glossy red notebook. All the while she is aware that a larger destiny awaits her.
On the other side of Karachi lives Monty, whose father owns half the city. But Monty wants more than fast cars and easy girls. When the rebellious Layla joins his school, he knows his life will never be the same again.
And far away in Portsmouth, Sunny fits in nowhere. It is only when he meets his charismatic, suntanned cousin Oz-whose smile makes Sunny feel found-that that he realizes his true purpose.
These three disparate lives will cross paths in the middle of a desert, a place where life and death walk hand-in-hand, and where their closely guarded secrets will force them to make a terrible choice.
For readers of Tommy Orange, Yaa Gyasi, and Jhumpa Lahiri, an electrifying debut novel about three unforgettable characters who seek to rise-to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies-and find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe in contemporary India
This is an electrifying debut novel about three unforgettable characters who find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe. They seek to rise-to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies. One is Jivan, a Muslim girl from the slums accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. The second is PT Sir, an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party, only to find his own ascent linked to Jivan’s fall. And the third is Lovely, an irresistible outcast who has an alibi that can set Jivan free-but at the cost of everything she holds dear. Taut, symphonic, propulsive and riveting right from the outset, A Burning has the force of an epic while being so masterfully compressed that it can be read in a single sitting. Majumdar writes with dazzling assurance, at a breakneck pace, on complex themes that read as the components of a thriller: class, fate, corruption, justice and what it feels like to face profound obstacles while nurturing big dreams in a country spinning towards extremism.
What if we don’t know our own dark secret?
A year after the horrifying death of his fiancé Kashika, Kanav Raghuwanshi finds himself in therapy struggling to move on. Anahita, his therapist cum confidante, tries her best to help him, but when Kanav starts to see unmistakable signs of Kashika’s reappearance all over the city, coupled with an unoccupied neighbouring flat that is the source of all things mysterious, Kanav enters a battle between his imagination and reality.
Meanwhile, Meenakshi, Kanav’s new love interest, is all set to steal his heart, until Kanav discovers she’s not who she says she is. In fact, it seems no one is who they say they are. Perhaps not even Kanav himself.
Red Suits You is a short psychological thriller by Novoneel Chakraborty that promises to keep you pinned to the edge of your seat.
Set in the backdrop of the uprising against the
armed forces in Kashmir in the late 1980s, Lost in Terror
is the tale of a young, educated, career-conscious woman
who finds herself sucked into a maelstrom of death and
destruction. She also cherishes the dream of Azadi and plays
strong to face the wrath of the security forces. But when she
uncovers her husband’s discreet links with gunmen who have
become obsessed with the dream of Azadi at the expense of
the family’s security, she becomes fragile and begins to lose
her hold on her home, her relationships and Azadi itself.
When her dreams for a perfect family and a thriving
career are turned upside down and her life comes to
a standstill, fate offers her a leap of faith-but will she take it?
