• Crime - English

    The Mist over Mussoorie

    July 6, 2025 - By 

    Kiran Malhotra Chapter 1: Return to the Hills Aryan Mehta stepped off the narrow mountain road and onto the familiar moss-stained path that led to St. Luke’s Academy, the colonial-era boarding school where he had spent four complicated, unforgettable years of his youth. The air in Mussoorie carried its perennial chill, tinged with the scent of damp pine needles and the metallic bite of rain-soaked stone, wrapping the hillside in a soft, relentless mist that seemed to muffle every footstep, every birdcall, every human breath. Even now, so many years later, the sight of the grand stone archway—its crest still…

  • Crime - English - Suspense

    A Death in Dariba

    July 5, 2025 - By 

    Mayank Sufi Part 1: The Man in the Silver Kurta The lanes of Dariba Kalan in Old Delhi were quiet that morning, quieter than usual. The scent of ittar still hung in the air like the memory of a lover’s touch, but the shops had yet to roll up their shutters. It was barely 6:30 a.m. when a rickshaw-wala, yawning and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, noticed something odd in front of Ibrahim & Sons — Jewelers Since 1837. A man lay face-down, slumped against the closed shutter, silver kurta crumpled, a faint red trail soaking into the dust…

  • Crime - English - Suspense

    The Quiet Exit

    July 4, 2025 - By 

    Ananya D’Souza Part 1 — The Locked Flat The rain had fallen hard the night before, and the grey morning light was doing little to scrub the city clean. Mumbai was damp, impatient, and hungover. Detective Inspector Reeva Kale lit her third cigarette of the morning as she stepped out of her beat-up white Mahindra Thar, ignoring the security guard trying to catch her attention. She hated apartment towers—too many floors, too many alibis. This one was worse: a posh building in Andheri West with glass balconies and silent lifts. Too clean to be honest. The call had come at…

  • Crime - English

    Blueprints for a Murder

    July 4, 2025 - By 

    Sahana Iyer 1 The rain hit Pune like it meant to peel the city apart—needles of water carving through dust and metal as if the monsoon had something personal to prove. Meghna Deshpande stood at the edge of her balcony, her coffee cooling in her hand, watching the glassy sheen on the road below reflect a fractured world. Her morning had been like any other—emails, contractor calls, a delayed tender for a flyover near Shivajinagar—until the courier arrived. No sender, no company seal. Just a brown kraft-paper envelope, damp at the corners, addressed in shaky black marker to “Meghna Deshpande,…

  • Crime - English

    The Vanishing Architect

    July 4, 2025 - By 

    Satish Shah The Missing Blueprint The rain hit the windowpanes of the twelfth-floor conference room like a drummer gone mad. Below, Mumbai’s Friday traffic looked like molten steel trapped in a forge—bright, hot, and slow. Inside, the room was ice cold, despite the storm outside. Empty leather chairs faced a glass podium. Journalists muttered under their breath, their cameras idle, their pens dry. The event of the year was twenty minutes late. Where was Ayaan Mehta? At precisely 7:00 p.m., the launch of The Skyveil—India’s tallest and most audacious skyscraper—was supposed to begin. Designed by the reclusive architectural genius Ayaan…

  • Crime - English

    The Missing Kingfisher

    July 3, 2025 - By 

    Namrata Das Chapter 1: The Vanishing Act The early morning sun filtered through the glass windows of the high-rise building, casting long shadows over the boardroom table where Vikram Khandelwal, CEO of Khandelwal Technologies, had sat just days ago. The office now stood eerily silent, devoid of its usual buzz, as the city of Bangalore continued its relentless pace outside. Vikram’s sudden disappearance had left everyone in shock. The multi-billion-dollar merger between Khandelwal Technologies and Rathi Innovations, set to redefine the Indian tech landscape, had fallen apart without explanation. In a matter of hours, a corporate juggernaut had crumbled, and…

  • Crime - English

    The Shadow over Kalighat

    July 1, 2025 - By 

    Diptayan Chakraborty 1 Dawn had only just begun to stir over the ancient lanes of Kalighat, where the smell of incense curled lazily around moss-stained walls and the rhythmic clang of temple bells blended with the cawing of crows perched like sentinels on crumbling terraces. Yet the sacred calm was shattered when a ghastly discovery emerged by the eastern steps of the Kalighat temple—a young woman’s lifeless body laid out as if in offering, her limbs arranged with eerie deliberation, fresh blood pooling around ritual markings that even the old flower sellers couldn’t recognize. Inspector Arindam Chatterjee arrived at the…

  • Crime - English

    Blood on the White

    July 1, 2025 - By 

    Anshuman Gupta The early morning sun struggled to pierce through the dense clouds that hung low over Gulmarg’s snow-covered slopes. The ski resort, usually bustling with tourists craving the pristine beauty of Kashmir’s winter, lay eerily silent, draped under a cold, misty blanket. Only the crunch of footsteps echoed faintly across the frozen grounds — footsteps belonging to Major Rehan Kaul. Rehan’s breath came out in visible puffs as he made his way toward the small wooden cabin at the edge of the clearing. It was the last place anyone had seen his sister alive. Samiya Kaul, a fearless journalist…

  • Crime - English

    Behind the Nameplate

    July 1, 2025 - By 

    1 The day began like most Mondays in Gurgaon—grey towers cutting into a hazy sky, the hum of elevators, the staccato rhythm of heels on marble. Ira Mallick stepped into the 24th floor of SysCore Solutions, coffee in hand, her ID badge swinging against her chest. The HR bay was as sterile as ever—white partitions, motivational posters, the faint scent of lemon disinfectant. She took her usual corner seat, adjusted her ergonomically-assigned chair, and opened her laptop. Outlook pinged to life. Buried among the calendar invites and onboarding queries was an unread email titled simply: “If I’m Gone – Read…

  • Crime - English

    Satpura Files

    June 30, 2025 - By 

    Rajat Bhatia 1 The air in the Satpura forest had always felt like a living thing—dense, watchful, sacred. But this morning, Kabir Solanki sensed something else: silence that felt tampered with. The usual melody of drongos and parakeets had been replaced by the low, uneasy whisper of a forest holding its breath. Riding his forest department-issued motorbike along a narrow dirt path cloaked in early mist, Kabir scanned the sal and teak trees with a practiced eye. He had served in these jungles for nearly five years since leaving the army, but he’d never seen this particular route—just beyond Jamni…