Book picks similar to
Bombay Fever by Sidin Vadukut


fiction
thriller
crime-thriller
indian-author

The Forgotten Girl


Rio Youers - 2017
    He likes his peaceful life, but everything he knows is turned upside down when he is abducted and beaten by a group of nondescript thugs. Working for a sinister man known as "The Spider," these goons have spent the last nine years searching for Harvey’s girlfriend, Sally Starling. Now they think they know where she lives. And who she loves.There's only one problem: Sally is gone and Harvey has no memory of her. Which doesn't make any sense, until The Spider explains that Sally has the unique ability to selectively erase a person’s memories. An ability she has used to delete herself from Harvey’s mind.But as Harvey recovers from his beating, he discovers that Sally left him with one partial memory... a dancing girl in a blue dress.Life isn’t peaceful for Harvey anymore, and he soon finds himself in a war he can never win.Or can he?

Kellie's Diary #1


Thomas Jenner - 2013
    When the world crumbles and the dead walk, Kellie struggles to survive and find her way home, all the while sharing her tale with her diary.This is an account of our hypothetical past, present and future.

Dinosaur Lake


Kathryn Meyer Griffith - 1993
    Ex-cop Henry Shore has been Chief Park Ranger at Crater Lake National Park for eight years and he likes his park and his life the way it’s been. Safe. Tranquil. Predictable. But he’s about to be tested in so many ways. First the earthquakes begin…people begin to go missing…then there’s some mysterious water creature that’s taken up residence in the caves below Crater Lake and it’s not only growing in size, it’s aggressive and cunning…and very hungry. And it’s decided it likes human beings. To eat.And it can come up onto land.So Henry, with the help of his wife, Ann; a young paleontologist named Justin; and a band of brave men must not only protect his park and his people from the monster but somehow find where it lives and destroy it…before it can kill again. ***

The Vorrh


Brian Catling - 2012
    It is a place of demons and angels, of warriors and priests. Sentient and magical, the Vorrh bends time and wipes  memory. Legend has it that the Garden of Eden still exists at its heart. Now, a renegade English soldier aims to be the first human to traverse its expanse. Armed with only a strange bow, he begins his journey, but some fear the consequences of his mission, and a native marksman has been chosen to stop him. Around them swirl a remarkable cast of characters, including a Cyclops raised by robots and a young girl with tragic curiosity, as well as historical figures, such as writer Raymond Roussel, heiress Sarah Winchester, and photographer Edward Muybridge.  While fact and fiction blend, the hunter will become the hunted, and everyone’s fate hangs in the balance under the will of the Vorrh.

The Girl with All the Gifts


M.R. Carey - 2014
    Dr. Caldwell calls her "our little genius."Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.The Girl with All the Gifts is a sensational thriller, perfect for fans of Stephen King, Justin Cronin, and Neil Gaiman.

400 Days


Chetan Bhagat - 2021
    Nine months ago,’ Alia said.The police had given up. They called it a cold case. Even the rest of her family had stopped searching.Alia wouldn’t stop looking, though. She wanted to know if I could help her.Hi, I am Keshav Rajpurohit and I am a disappointment to everyone around me. I live with my parents, who keep telling me how I should a) get married, b) focus on my IPS exams, c) meet more people and d) close my detective agency.But Alia Arora, neighbour and ex-model, wanted my help. And I couldn’t take my eyes off her face … I mean, her case.Welcome to 400 Days. A mystery and romance story like none other. An unputdownable tale of suspense, human relationships, love, friendship, the crazy world we live in and, above all, a mother’s determination to never give up.From India’s highest-selling author comes a page-turner that will not only keep you glued to the story but also touch you deeply.

The Night Ocean


Paul La Farge - 2017
    Lovecraft and his circle. Marina Willett, M.D., has a problem. Her husband, Charlie, has become obsessed with H.P. Lovecraft, in particular with one episode in the legendary horror writer's life: In the summer of 1934, the "old gent" lived for two months with a gay teenage fan named Robert Barlow, at Barlow's family home in central Florida. What were the two of them up to? Were they friends--or something more? Just when Charlie thinks he's solved the puzzle, a new scandal erupts, and he disappears. The police say it's suicide. Marina is a psychiatrist, and she doesn't believe them.A tour-de-force of storytelling, The Night Ocean follows the lives of some extraordinary people: Lovecraft, the most influential American horror writer of the 20th century, whose stories continue to win new acolytes, even as his racist views provoke new critics; Barlow, a seminal scholar of Mexican culture who killed himself after being blackmailed for his homosexuality (and who collaborated with Lovecraft on the beautiful story The Night Ocean); his student, future Beat writer William S. Burroughs; and L.C. Spinks, a kindly Canadian appliance salesman and science-fiction fan -- the only person who knows the origins of The Erotonomicon, purported to be the intimate diary of Lovecraft himself.As a heartbroken Marina follows her missing husband's trail in an attempt to learn the truth, the novel moves across the decades and along the length of the continent, from a remote Ontario town, through New York and Florida to Mexico City.The Night Ocean is about love and deception -- about the way that stories earn our trust, and betray it.

Ashvamedha - The Game Of Power


Aparna Sinha - 2016
    I was itching to defeat the single most powerful person, but there wasn't any. I was left with only one choice — to create one."Little does Ashwin Jamwal know that the last twenty-five years of his life have been controlled by a master manipulator, who wanted to make him the most powerful man on earth, though for a reason! Ashwin steps up to take oath as the youngest Prime Minister of India and is unknowingly thrown into a vortex of power and authority as the entire world is threatened by a faceless enemy — Hades.The world starts to look up to Ashwin as the savior, but he was just a pawn, reared only to be sacrificed in the end.A story of greed, lies, deceptions, manipulations and corruption, Ashvamedha is a thriller revolving around the infamous game of power in a maddening bid to seek absolute control.

The Lying Room


Nicci French - 2019
    A guilty indiscretion that Neve Connolly could have weathered. An escape from twenty years of routine marriage to her overworked husband, and from her increasingly distant children. But when Neve pays a morning-after visit to her lover, Saul, and finds him brutally murdered, their pied-à-terre still heady with her perfume, all the lies she has so painstakingly stitched together threaten to unravel.After scrubbing clean every trace of her existence from Saul’s life—and death—Neve believes she can return to normal, shaken but intact. But she can’t get out of her head the one tormenting question: what was she forgetting?An investigation into the slaying could provide the answer. It’s brought Detective Chief Inspector Alastair Hitching, and Neve’s worst fears, to her door. But with every new lie, every new misdirection to save herself, Neve descends further into the darkness of her betrayal—and into more danger than she ever imagined. Because Hitching isn’t the only one watching Neve. So is a determined killer who’s about to make the next terrifying move in a deadly affair….

Vikram Rana Investigates


Sharmishtha Shenoy - 2016
    This is Vikram’s first case and he, along with Inspector Gopi Reddy, must solve the case even if they face opposition from the richest and powerful family in Hyderabad, who would stop at nothing to defend themselves. The Sonia Sinha Case When property developer Krishna Dhavala is stabbed to death in Necklace Road, everyone suspects Mrs. Dhavala to be the murderer of her alcoholic and abusive husband. But is that really the case? Vikram Rana and Inspector Reddy have a tough time uncovering the murderer and Vikram himself almost dies trying to solve this case. Experience the mystery along with the duo as they fight their way through the maze of lies, deceit and greed.

The Sanatorium


Sarah Pearse - 2021
    Half hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel.An imposing, isolated getaway spot high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But Elin's taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept.Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge--there's something about the hotel that makes her nervous. And when they wake the following morning to discover Laure is missing, Elin must trust her instincts if they hope to find her. With the storm closing off all access to the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic.Elin is under pressure to find Laure, but no one has realized yet that another woman has gone missing. And she's the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they are all in...

The Killer Next Door


Alex Marwood - 2013
    23 has a secret. In this bedsit-riddled south London wreck, lorded over by a lecherous landlord, something waits to be discovered. Yet all six residents have something to hide.Collette and Cher are on the run; Thomas is a reluctant loner; while a gorgeous Iranian asylum seeker and a 'quiet man' nobody sees try to stay hidden. And watching over them all is Vesta - or so she thinks. In the dead of night, a terrible accident pushes the neighbours into an uneasy alliance. But one of them is a killer, expertly hiding their pastime, all the while closing in on their next victim...As a cloying heatwave suffocates the city, events build to an electrifying climax in this dark, original and irresistibly compelling thriller.

A Beginner's Guide to Free Fall


Andy Abramowitz - 2020
    Brothers and sisters. Mothers and daughters. Okay, everybody. Hold on tight. Davis Winger has it all. A respected engineer who designs roller coasters in theme parks across the country, he is deeply in love with his wife and has a beautiful young daughter and a happy home. Until an accident strikes on one of his rides. Nothing fatal—except to his career. And to his marriage, when a betrayal from his past inadvertently comes to light. In one cosmically bad day, Davis loses it all.His sister, Molly, is at a crossroads herself. She’s coasting through a dire relationship with an incompatible man-child. And she’s a journalist whose deeply personal columns about mothers and daughters are forcing her to confront the truth about her own mother, who abandoned Molly and Davis years ago and disappeared.For these two siblings, it’s just a matter of bracing themselves for one turbulent summer in this redemptive and painfully funny family drama about making the best of the sharp turns in life—those we choose to take and those beyond our control.

Ten Sigma


A.W. Wang - 2019
    The struggles span all possibilities: face-offs with knives and clubs, skirmishes as Roman legionaries, pitched WW1 trench warfare, duels with ultra-modern hypersonic weapons, and everything in between. The combatants who live are rewarded with another battle until they reach the unreachable score of ten sigmas. Those who die are expunged from the system, gone forever. The methods, so harsh they go beyond anything possible in the real world, are necessary for the end goal: violent evolution to produce the greatest warriors in all of human history.Who would choose such a fate?Those with no hope.On a wintry night, a government representative presents Mary, who is dying of incurable cancer, with the offer: a second chance at life and for those completing the requirements, a return to the real world in a fresh, healthy body. To save her family from bankrupting medical bills, she accepts.After her consciousness is transferred into the virtual universe of the program, her essence is ripped apart and her memories shattered. She’s reassembled as the perfect killer.As the life-and-death contests begin, she discovers the true nature of what lies ahead. But, she won’t surrender to the impossible and grimly embarks on the journey to return to her family while trying to save her soul.Mature readers only: intense combat, graphic violence, horror elements, some sex, some language.

The Maze Runner


James Dashner - 2009
    When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers—boys whose memories are also gone. Nice to meet ya, shank. Welcome to the Glade. Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It’s the only way out—and no one’s ever made it through alive. Everything is going to change. Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying. Remember. Survive. Run.