Sunday, March 6, 2016

Crime Fiction set in Bangalore my home town!

 Crime Fiction set in Bangalore, my home town!

I am trying to compile a list of (crime) novels set in my home town of Bangalore.

 1.Nilanjan P Choudhury's  'The case of the secretive sister'
The above is authored by a Bengali who moved to Bangalore.(available in amazon.com) I bought it. Read it. Loved it. It's hilarious!

Dead air-Biju C James : Notion press, Sept 17, 2021 

2 Anitha Nair's Cut like wound
I am a Gowda ...ergo I am so tickled to see a Gowda hero...probably the first Gowda detective in an English novel!
I borrowed it from Toronto Public library and read it!(also available in amazon.com).  It may not be the best crime fiction I ever read but I love that it has the elements of my culture....I never ever dreamt that I would one day be reading a book with a ragi mudde -mossoppu eating detective! Nair has captured the culture of Bangalore so well! Hope she writes more of Bore Gowda books. 

There are several Gowda police officers in real life in Karnataka and India;there are many many Gowda detectives in Kannada movies & maybe Kannada novels too. But Nair's Bore Gowda is going to put both Bangalore and Gowdas on the world map!
Visited Bangalore again (September 2016) and discovered the next Borei Gowda book is out! Read and loved the second book
3) Chain of custody.

4Aravind Adiga's The white tiger...Adiga had put Bangalore on the world map long before Anita Nair through The white tiger...he won the Man booker for this. I am not sure if this book belongs to the genre of  crime fiction ....it's definitely about crime.

Harini Nagendra's The Bangalore detective's club 

5. Zac O Yeah's Mr.Majestic, the tout of Bangalore
Zac is a  Swedish writer.

6.Zac O Yeah's Hari a hero for hire.
I picked Zac's two books during my 2016 trip to Bangalore and  loved them! The books are hilarious and describe Bangalore well. The style of writing is refreshingly different and the sudden quips had me in splits many many times. I do hope there's more of Hari AKA Majestic coming from Zac!

Zac O Yeah's Tropical Detective published on Dec 28th 2017.

7. Agni Sreedhar's My days in the underworld..the rise of Bangalore mafia. Tranqebar press(available in amazon.com) This English translation is an abridged version. The Kannada original, is longer than this. Based on true events in the life of the author who was an underworld don(was or is?)
In the context of Agni Sreedhar's book,you may also like to read   online, Scott Carney "The Godfather of Bangalore",  on the Wired dated October 20th 2008. This is an article about land mafia of Bangalore. I have not read these books of Sreedhar.

Another book by Agni Sreedhar is Gangster's Gita published in 2019 by Eka (kindle and paperback available)and translated from Kannada by Prathiba Nandakumar

8.Monideepa Sahu's The riddle of the 7th stone  published by Zubaan in 2010. This is a crime fiction for children.(ISBN 978-8189884802)(available in amazon.com)

9)Vinay Ramakrishna: Bangalore chronicles: A kidnap.  Paperback/Pub: Notion press Pub date: Sept 8th 2015 

10)Madhumita Bhattacharya: Murder at the temple (Juggernaut publications...?digital and not book I think)

11)Romantic guerrilla by D.S.Kumar may have a little bit of Bangalore in it. 

12) Child of paradise. Listen to your dreams. Prathiba R.D.H


13) This is NOT fiction. Bhais of Bangalore by Jyoti Shelar published in 2017 by  Penguin Random House

 If you dear reader come across any crime fiction set in Bangalore please let me know, so I add to this list. Thanks in advance!

I also discovered that there many self-published crime fiction from India available only  in ebook formats. Some of them were Bangalore based crime fiction.


Below is a link to an article on books set in Bangalore
http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/stories-of-bangalore/article5956623.ece

If you google Novels set in Bangalore, a page from good reads pops up with a list...but not of crime fiction






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