Fiction

A  baffling crime. A rundown ex-cop. But he's their best bet.

A city on edge

A ruthless serial killer stalks the streets of Mumbai, leaving behind a gruesome trail of tortured victims. As the city reels in terror, the authorities grapple with a vital question: What links these seemingly random targets?

A dogged investigator

Enter Prakash Kadam, once a decorated cop but now an angry, bitter wreck of a man haunted by his past. Summoned to put an end to the madness, he finds himself neck-deep in an investigation mired in police sluggishness and antiquated forensics.

A deadly game

As old enmities resurface and perplexing twists in the case push him to the limit, can Kadam find the killer before it is too late? Or will he lose someone close to him---again?

With Razor Sharp, the first book in an exciting new series, Ashwin Sanghi demonstrates yet again his undisputed mastery at weaving complex, gripping thrillers that keep readers on the edge of their seats.

Channelling the craft of Neil Gaiman, and the humour and genius of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, Kanan Gill weaves a story that will surprise readers in the best ways possible, raising the most serious of questions: What does it mean to be human?

In Kanan Gill’s wildly entertaining and moving debut novel, a Danish policeman accidentally becomes a clothing-optional leader of a worldwide group of Science Haters, a sentient piece of wall struggles with the limits of its artistic expression, and a lapel pin’s habit of always giving truthful advice causes utter chaos.Gill puts his own spin on the long tradition of comedic science fiction, achieving a delightful alchemy of humour, imaginativeness and philosophical provocations. Blending vivid inventiveness and uproarious storytelling, with an intriguing interrogation of the very nature of existence, Acts of God marks the evolution of one of India’s finest comedic voices.

I wake up shivering and with a sore throat. Is it Covid? I grab a test kit and wait for the result. Luckily all is well. Most likely I have just caught a harmless cold...This scenario has become painfully familiar to us. India was one of the countries hit hardest by the Covid pandemic, with a tragically high number of casualties. The pandemic also made some things an integral part of our lives: wearing masks, sanitizing, social distancing, isolating oneself.

None of this, however, is unique-even though the Covid virus was a new one. Over the centuries, wave after wave of the devastating plague pandemic had impacted humanity in similar ways, and the responses to the threats it posed had been similar too. From sixth-century Constantinople and fourteenth-century Europe to Islamic Spain, seventeenth-century London, eighteenth-century Aleppo, and Hong Kong, Bombay, San Francisco and South Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the history of the plague is, in a way, the story of modern civilization.The Moral Contagion is an insightful and absorbing take on that story. Based on Julia Hauser's rigorous scholarship and enhanced by Sarnath Banerjee's wry illustrations, this utterly gripping book playfully melds meticulous research with imaginative storytelling to create a graphic narrative about pandemics and reflect on how societies and individuals tend to react when faced with an adversary that is, literally, larger than life.

Now in a psychiatric hospital, as she begins the process of ‘reconnecting with reality’, Maria recalls her journey of being ‘just Maria’ – a girl born into a Syrian Christian family in Kerala, whose companions were a grandfather who took her along to wander around the village and its toddy shops, a great-aunt with dementia who challenged Maria’s position as the youngest in the family, a dog with a penchant for philosophy, various long-dead family members including a great-grandmother with a knack for prophecies, a patron saint who insisted on interfering in people’s affairs, and Karthav Eesho Mishiha with whom Maria has regular conversations.Sandhya Mary’s novel Maria, Just Maria – masterfully translated by the award-winning Jayasree Kalathil – is an insightful and humorous take on ideas like normal-abnormal, natural-human, love-hate, etc. that define contemporary society, and the exuberant and moving story of a woman trying to find her place in this world.

1947. Amritsar. Guru Ram Das Serai near the Golden Temple has become a temporary refuge for Hindu and Sikh families fleeing the communal terror and bloodbath of Partition. One of the legions of volunteers providing succour to the new arrivals is Satnam Singh, the leader of the local Unity Council. He is struck by the extraordinary calm of an erudite-looking old man with a long flowing beard, and his companion, a resolute young woman, whose eyes seem haunted by the tragedies they have witnessed.

Taking the story of the Partition forward from Hymns in Blood, A Game of Fire follows Satnam as he observes the rising tide of communal violence threaten his beloved Amritsar. His own friends abandon their beliefs to join the relentless cycle of revenge and retribution, determined to purge the city of its large Muslim population. Even as he shelters the elderly man and the young woman in his own home, his faith in placing humanity before religion is severely tested and he oscillates between steadfastness and deep despair. Against the backdrop of emerging fissures in a new country and its people, Agg di Khed paints the picture of a city in turmoil and the unexpected heroes who rise from this catastrophe, its message as relevant today as it was when it was first published in 1948.

1947. Amritsar. Guru Ram Das Serai near the Golden Temple has become a temporary refuge for Hindu and Sikh families fleeing the communal terror and bloodbath of Partition. One of the legions of volunteers providing succour to the new arrivals is Satnam Singh, the leader of the local Unity Council. He is struck by the extraordinary calm of an erudite-looking old man with a long flowing beard, and his companion, a resolute young woman, whose eyes seem haunted by the tragedies they have witnessed.

Taking the story of the Partition forward from Hymns in Blood, A Game of Fire follows Satnam as he observes the rising tide of communal violence threaten his beloved Amritsar. His own friends abandon their beliefs to join the relentless cycle of revenge and retribution, determined to purge the city of its large Muslim population. Even as he shelters the elderly man and the young woman in his own home, his faith in placing humanity before religion is severely tested and he oscillates between steadfastness and deep despair. Against the backdrop of emerging fissures in a new country and its people, Agg di Khed paints the picture of a city in turmoil and the unexpected heroes who rise from this catastrophe, its message as relevant today as it was when it was first published in 1948.

The Book of Lost Tales stands at the beginning of the entire conception of Middle-earth and Valinor for the Tales were the first form of the myths and legends that came to be called The Silmarillion. Embedded in English legend and English association, they are set in the narrative frame of a great westward voyage over the Ocean by a mariner named Eriol to the lonely Isle where the Elves dwelt; from them he learned their true history, the Lost Tales of Elfinesse. In the Tales are found the earliest accounts of Gods and Elves, Dwarves, Balrogs and Orcs; of the Silmarils and the Two Trees of Valinor; of the geography and cosmology of Tolkien’s invented world.

This series of fascinating books has now been repackaged to complement the distinctive and classic style of the ‘black cover’ A-format paperbacks of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.

The second of a two-book set that contains the early myths and legends which led to the writing of Tolkien’s epic tale of war, The Silmarillion.

This second part of The Book of Lost Tales includes the tale of Beren and Lúthien, Túrin and the Dragon, and the only full narratives of the Necklace of the Dwarves and the Fall of Gondolin, itself the finest and most exciting depiction of a battle that Tolkien ever wrote. Each tale is followed by a commentary in the form of a short essay, together with texts of associated poems, and contains extensive information on names and vocabulary in the earliest Elvish languages.

This series of fascinating books has now been repackaged to complement the distinctive and classic style of the ‘black cover’ A-format paperbacks of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.