Zac O' Yeah on two freshly translated thrillers from either side of the border — one by the king of Hindi crime fiction and the other by the king of Urdu detective stories.
If there are literary seasons, then I guess the current is one of the hottest in a long time. A thriller from the king of Hindi crime fiction, Surender Mohan Pathak, and a mystery from the king of Urdu detective stories, Ibn-e Safi, both freshly translated, arrived on my desk in one parcel tied together with a piece of string, almost like two handcuffed goondas.
Daylight Robbery
Surender Mohan Pathak, Translated by Sudarshan Purohit
Blaft, 2010,
pp 236, Rs 195
Daylight Robbery, with its attractive pulp cover by legendary Shelle Studio, is the second title by Pathak to be translated into crisp, hardboiled English by Sudarshan Purohit. Already last year I’d been bowled over by The 65 Lakh Heist and I am glad to hear that the series will continue with at least one more translation, the shortly forthcoming Fortune’s Ransom.
These three belong in the ‘Vimal Series’. The story goes that Pathak had written 40 novels about a crime-solving journalist called Sunil, a good guy, but needed a different hero to fit more sordid plot ideas. So he created Vimal, who was framed by his wife and her lover, put in jail on charges of embezzlement, and escaped to become a wanted criminal. The book flopped.
Full report here Deccan Herald
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