There's hunt for fresh blood across India, Sweden, even Germany. Crime fiction in English is bigger than ever, and translations of Urdu, Hindi, Tamil and Bengali stories are piquing the urban reader's curiosity. Janaki Viswanathan says there's more blood to come

Crime authors claim there isn't any room for them in literary fiction. "We're the smokers hanging outside the literary building, so to speak," said Scottish novelist and comic book author Denise Mina at a bookstore event in the city. No matter what the literary classes think, Indian readers dote on their crime authors -- more so now. Why else would we play host to British crime fiction authors (Mina, Mark Billingham and Ian Rankin), invite them to literary festivals, or plan a Swedish crime week? The Indian reader is waking up again to gunshots, blood and mystery.

Jeyaraj, who has been an illustrator for Tamil magazines and comic books
for over 50 years, illustrates a pulp fiction crime scene exclusively for Sunday MiDDAY.
Most recently, he illustrated the Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction

Sivaraman Balakrishnan, deputy manager, marketing, Crossword confirms that the demand for crime fiction has shot up recently. "In 2009, crime fiction accounted for 24 per cent of our fiction sales." Winners include Ian Rankin, David Baldacci, Michael Connolly, James Patterson, Sandra Brown and of course, Agatha Christie who sold a neat 22,000 copies. The market expanded a couple of years ago, with the introduction of the Agatha Christie graphic novels by Euro Books.

Westland recently released Piggies On The Railway a whodunit by Smita Jain. "We sold 5,000 copies in three weeks, and are going for a reprint," says Jain with a smile.

Thomas Abraham, managing director, Hachette India, says thrillers fell from popularity in the 1970s and early 80s. "That's why the household names are fewer in this area than there should be," he says.

Saloni Zaveri-Ahluwalia, public relations officer at the Swedish Embassy says Scandinavian and particularly Swedish crime has become "wildly popular," and has turned into a brand in fact. As is the case with other pop culture trends, this too is a result of US and UK markets driving it first. "Publishers are aware that India is the third largest market for English books, so they've done a great job of promoting the books here."

The Betel-Nut Killers' author Manisha Lakhe believes it was the untimely death of Swedish journalist and author Stieg Larsson (Millennium trilogy), that fuelled the interest. "It's unfortunate but he died under mysterious circumstances, and didn't live to see what a sensation his books have become. That helped the boom," she says.

Debanjan Chakrabarti, head of inter-cultural dialogue, British Council, feels the recent economic recession played its role. People began reading more crime fiction since these books worked as a coping mechanism, an outlet for anger. "They are not pretty, they are hard, nasty and hold up a mirror to society," he says.
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Publishers hunting for gore
With publishers like Westland on the lookout for new talent in crime fiction, the authors say macabre is turning mirthful. "Crime's great fun, especially if you can get away with it!" laughs Lakhe. "All of us have at some point wanted to kill someone. One ride in Mumbai's local trains and you come face to face with violence," she says.

Jain tells you how initially publishers and readers too were looking for the 'great Indian novel'. "Now there's a plethora of daily-life books. MBA-lit, chick-lit, dude-lit, you name it. But everyone loves a good whodunit, especially one in which they can't figure out who the criminal is till the very end," says the Mumbai-based author who also wrote the screenplay for the second edition of popular TV detective series Karamchand.
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Jain took on crime when she realised that India doesn't have a good crime series, a handy tip from her editor.

She is currently working on the sequel to her first novel, Kkrishna's Konfessions, which she calls a chick-lit-crime novel, and will soon continue the Kasthuri Kumar (Piggies On The Railway) detective series.