The Front Page Murders
Non-fiction/True Crime
Hachette, 2016
About the book:
Mumbai, April 2012.
The gruesome murder of a senior citizen in a wealthy Mumbai neighbourhood leads the city’s Crime Branch to unearth several half-naked, mutilated and dismembered bodies rotting in the ravines of the Western Ghats on the outskirts of the city.
A trail of missing suspects, a lethal honey-trap, and unexpected links with Mumbai's film industry and the underworld, brings the investigators - and the press, ever hungry for breaking news - to Vijay Palande, a cold-blooded killer equipped with the sophistication of Charles Sobhraj, the manipulative genius of Ted Bundy and the cruelty of Jack the Ripper.
In The Front Page Murders, Puja Changoiwala, who covered the incidents as they unfolded, recounts in gripping detail the story behind the sensational case of multiple murders that shocked the country. Startling and intensely sobering by turns, her compelling narrative explores not just the murky depths of a serial killer's mind but, tellingly, the media's frenzy for a juicy story and the insatiable human appetite for horror.
Praise for The Front Page Murders:
'A bone-chilling account of one of India's most sophisticated serial killers. The author's writing sensitively depicts the story, which involves a myriad of human emotions. Thoroughly riveting, fresh and flawless.
The Times of India
'The Front Page Murders is a page-turner with a Victorian writing style. The biggest strength of the book lies in the manner in which the author writes, with the flair and flourish of a crime fiction writer – except that all events narrated in the book are true. It’s almost like re-reading an Agatha Christie novel.
Business Standard
Gritty and fascinating.
The book is an honest and gripping account of one of the many cases that made Mumbai what it was—“a seductress, a teacher and an assassin."
Outlook
The author has meticulously transformed her detailed notes from her reporter’s notebook into diary-like entries. Incredible detailing; the book offers great behind-the-scenes on law and order.
The Hindu
One of the year's best non-fiction titles by an Indian author.
Changoiwala has an acute eye for detail. In India, strangely, if you step into any bookshop, true crime books have so far been stocked on the crime shelf—if there is such a shelf at all—rather than in the non-fiction section. But now, with The Front Page Murders, the genre is reaching a sense of literary maturity.
Buzzfeed
'Uncovers the Oshiwara couple from hell: Bombay's Bonnie and Clyde.
Mumbai Mirror
A work of non-fiction that reads much like a racy crime thriller. In addition to the commendable research, the author’s language flows nice and easy.
The Tribune
Open
Taut and tense.