There are stories within me that I want to tell, says Nupur Anand
In an old quintessential Parsi café in Mumbai, six people are gunned down on a rainy September night. This café Mehboob is located barely a few hundred metres from the police station, within shouting distance of a busy railway station. The case turns sensational, jolting the city out of its complacency. Even as the case is dubbed a mass murder, the investigating officer is sure that there is more to it than meets the eye. Thus embarks business journalist Nupur Anand on her first novel, titled Mehboob Murderer.
A crime thriller, the book was born from Anand’s love for crime fiction. Back in 2010, she picked up a book on a Friday night and finished it over the weekend, sacrificing her sleep and cancelling her weekend plans. “One intriguing thing about a crime thriller is that the canvas of emotion that it allows you to explore is very wide which may not be possible with other genres, I believe,” explains Anand, who then set about conducting extensive research for Mehboob Murderer.
“The skills that I have learnt as a journalist helped me during my research. Then, as a reporter, you are trained to question things and writing a crime novel required the plot to be airtight, yet believable, so it even helped me call my own failings out during the writing/editing process,” recalls Anand.
Even though the skills she acquired at her job helped her write the book, doing so along with a fulltime job was still a challenge. “God, it was
tough! But I was very sure that I wanted to write this book. There are stories within me that I had to tell and I was clear that I had to do it. I would usually write for a couple of hours before heading out to work and then spend time rewriting it over the weekend. It was a pretty daunting task to manage both, but I guess it has been all worth it in the end,” shares the Delhi University graduate. Hers is without doubt an exemplary accomplishment — a pacey read hiding hints carefully, which is at par for the course in any piece of suspense fiction, but withholds enough for you to read it till the end, by which time you will have little of your nails left.
And since Anand is such a sucker for crime thrillers, what may be her favourites in the genre? “This is genuinely a very difficult question because there can’t be one! So, I am going to list out a few authors and series that I have absolutely loved reading. That includes the Martin Beck series of novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, the John Rebus books by Ian Rankin, the Wallander series by Henning Markell... apart from these, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading Pierre Lemaitre, Keigo Higashino, Camila Lackberg among others,” says Anand.