WRITER
‘You Beneath Your Skin’ is a confusing title, for starters. You have to read the blurb to ensure that it’s not a self-help book. Published by Simon & Schuster India, Damyanti Biswas’s debut novel is a literary crime fiction, set against a backdrop of a string of murders across the city of New Delhi, where slum women are found stuffed in body bags with their faces disfigured by acid (a hint to the title).
An account of selective sting operations conducted by journalist and editor Bhupen Patel, ‘The Anatomy of a Sting’ makes for an interesting read. The book details ten such accounts by Patel during his career with media organizations like Mumbai Mirror, Mid-Day, and NDTV. But more interestingly, it stays true to its name.
Sometimes, you read something, and it confirms the thoughts you have been having all along.
For those of you who may be unaware, Jerry Pinto is a Mumbai based prolific author. He was well known for his poetry and his writings on Mumbai and Bollywood, until his debut fiction ‘Em and the Big Hoom’ bagged four major awards, including Government of India’s Sahitya Akademi Award and Yale University’s Windham-Campbell Literature prize. I haven’t read that book (yet) and I’m glad for I could come to ‘Murder in Mahim’ without all that baggage.
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