Damyanti Biswas comes out with second crime novel

Biswas was attending a workshop run by Sri Lanka-born British author Romesh Gunesekera, who was once shortlisted for the Booker Prize, when she started writing this book.

“The prompt was to write about a character who’s being watched but isn’t aware of it. My response turned into the first chapter of ‘The Blue Bar’: Tara being watched by someone at a crowded Mumbai railway station. I then let my curiosity lead me into the story. Who was watching her? Why? Who were the people in her life? What was her story? And that led to an entire novel,” Biswas told PTI.

Set in gritty, glam Mumbai, “The Blue Bar” (published by Thomas & Mercer in the US on January 1) delves deep into a realistic world of corrupt police, Bollywood, and sultry dance bars.

Biswas, whose Indian debut literary crime novel “You Beneath Your Skin” was optioned for the screens by Endemol Shine, says one of her driving forces in writing is an insatiable curiosity about other people’s lives.

 

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“What makes people tick, compels them to take the decisions they do, and the way they deal with the consequences of each choice or decision,” she says.

“During the commission and investigation of a crime, emotions run high, situations turn extreme, and the heart races even as the mind tries to make sense of it all.

At such times, the habitual masks people wear often slip, and you can see them for exactly who they are,” she says.

Biswas tries to do that – watch her characters go through terrible situations and discover what they are truly made of.

“Their desires, their weaknesses, their reactions to adversity and challenge, it all fascinates me, and leads me to write crime novels. As well, justice is seldom found in real life, so I try to find a measure of it within the pages of the novels I write,” she says.

While choosing her characters, she says she tries to give each villain one of her favourite qualities in herself or her loved ones and also to give a protagonist an annoying trait or belief she would like to change about her or her friends or family.

On why she decided to go first with a US publication date for “The Blue Bar” contrary to “You Beneath Your Skin”, which was first published in India, she says, “The US is the largest English language publishing industry, and provides excellent editorial support – I’ve learned so much about plot development and structure while working with my agent and my editors at Thomas & Mercer.” “The Blue Bar” is available in India as an ebook, and Biswas says the India rights for the book are being negotiated at the moment and there should be an Indian paperback soon.

“The Blue Bar” was ranked higher than even works of Ian Rankin among other stalwarts in the opening week on the bestsellers in the US.

“My book has found a lot of love on Amazon USA, and it has been a dream run being ranked with authors who I’ve admired for so long… That’s a lovely validation of a crime novel set in Mumbai which has found equal praise from Mumbaikars as well as Western readers,” Biswas says.

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