Books on crooks

If you’re looking for the latest crime fiction from around the globe, the finest resource is Gangarams Book Bureau— apparently about to relocate soon to St Mark’s Road, Bangalore above Koshy’s café (optimal!)

One of the best things about Bangalore’s cantonment is how it has become a treasure trove for bibliophiles. With a little detective work in the bookshops here, one can build oneself a respectable and wide-ranging crime fiction library.

Thankfully, several venerable old bookshops have survived in this era of Internet book-shopping, even if others, like the legendary Premier, my main supplier for many years, shut shop some time ago. But for a nostalgic moment, you can still browse best-selling thrillers at the Raj-era Higginbotham’s (a chain founded in south India in the 1800s and once upon a time “official booksellers to His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales”). Or go to Crossword (one of the finest shops in that chain) if you prefer a more contemporary scene with easy chairs to sit and test-read in.

If you’re looking for the latest crime fiction from around the globe, the finest resource is Gangarams Book Bureau— apparently about to relocate soon to St Mark’s Road above Koshy’s café (optimal!). I’ve picked up translated detective novels here that I haven’t spotted anywhere else, such as the weird Swedish toy-animal gumshoe adventure Amberville by Tim Davys. The current best crime novel, if you are a genre aficionado, is The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino—a rage in Japan, it reinvents the old puzzle mystery with aplomb, turning misdirection into a beautiful art.

Full report here Mint