10 Best Suspense Thrillers by Indian Authors; You Must Read Before You Die

8 min readMay 2, 2022

So, today we will bust a long-lived myth that Indian suspense thrillers and crime novels are not up to the mark and Indian readers always tend to read western authors like Edger Allan Poe, Agatha Cristine and Authur Colen Doyle. For all those who believe that Indian crime stories and novels are not up to the mark, I am here to give you some great suggestions that will make you fall in love with Indian crime genre authors.

Best Suspense Thrillers by Indian Authors till Date.

Dead Air
The Complete Adventures of Feluda
The Dead Don’t Talk
Murdrum — The Probe Begins
Hawa Mahal Murders
Murder at the Grand Raj Palace
Birth of a Duo
The Calcutta Conundrum
More Bodies Will Fall
No Trespassing

Dead Air

by Biju C. James

Goodreads rating — 4.64

Vikram Shetty, a once-brilliant investigative journalist in Bangalore, is on a downward spiral. His stories have dried up and his career is nearly over.

A leading supermodel is brutally murdered and the story is forced upon a reluctant Vikram. His editor knows only the tenacity of Vikram’s once-brilliant mind can unravel the impossible skein.

Vikram’s investigation seems to be going nowhere until he has a chance encounter with a girl suffering from nightmares about the gory murder.

But nightmares have a habit of coming true and soon, Vikram is thrust into a nightmare of his own.

He must unravel the mystery and find the killer. Unfortunately, there is a clock ticking and without Vikram knowing it, the countdown has begun.

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The Complete Adventures of Feluda Vol 1 and 2

by Satyajit Ray

Goodreads rating — 4.54

Between 1965 and 1992, Satyajit Ray wrote a total of 35 Feluda stories, featuring the master sleuth Pradosh C. Mitter, AKA Feluda.

The plots involve murder, mystery and adventure, most of the times in exotic locations, narrated in a racy, humorous style by the detective’s cousin-cum-assistant Topeshranjan Mitter aka Topshe, and in most cases, accompanied by the funny Lalmohan Ganguly AKA Jatayu, who himself was a famous crime writer.

All of this makes for an enormously entertaining fare — and it is no wonder that each Feluda book has been a best-seller. All the stories are now available together in this two-volume omnibus.

For the first time, the stories are arranged in chronological order of composition, and one can note Feluda’s development from an unknown amateur detective to a famous investigator.

This first volume contains some of the best Feluda stories ever written.

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The Dead Don’t Talk

by Sumit Ghoshal

Goodreads rating — 4.49
The Dead Don’t Talk is a thrilling murder mystery in the classical mould, featuring the private investigator Rudradeep Ray and his best friend Sujit.

Based in Calcutta in the turbulent seventies, the story is set in the palatial home of the Ganguly family where a member of the household is found murdered inside a locked room.

As Rudradeep pieces together a complicated puzzle, he has to contend with hostile witnesses and perplexing clues, with the police forming a reluctant ally.

Rudradeep delves deeper into the crime, uncovering layer after layer of deceit and lies. No one is what they appear to be and almost every member of the Ganguly family has had a direct or indirect motive to commit the murder.

As the murderer strikes a second time, Rudradeep leads the case to a shocking conclusion.

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Murdrum- The probe begins

by Dr Sohil Makwana

Goodreads Rating — 4.40
A horrifying decapitated head.

A CBI intern on an assignment finds mysterious ‘Two Dots’ from a cold case.

Human DNA is extracted from a mosquito’s stomach.

“Why had Harold Shipman killed 250 women?” A question of criminal psychology enters the picture.

Against the corrupt system, a CBI intern leaves no stone unturned to dig the rort of a cold-blooded serial killer.

Several incredible, high-tech forensic investigations are stacked against a tech-savvy killer who knows his job inside-out.

And, the sexual sadist killer releases another cypher with a rise in the body count.

Forensic advancement has brought out a digital face from DNA. Will she be able to get the killer’s DNA?

How has he become a monster out of a man?

Are these efforts enough to catch the killer? Or is there something special in the store?

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The Hawa Mahal Murders

by N.J. Kulkarni

Goodreads rating — 4.27
It was an old building in Mumbai, a wretched imitation of Hawa Mahal. Built by a rich jeweller as a homage to his adulterated love. It wasn’t cursed but it might as well have been. Bad deeds don’t go unpunished. Forbidden love extracts a price.

This is a story about a blackmailer and serial killer hiding in plain sight.

It is also a story about Smita, a troubled housewife trapped in a bad marriage, and about Jai, an honest police officer desperate to prove himself but stymied at every step by a crooked boss and a corrupt system.

When a series of murders take place in a posh locality in Mumbai, Jai watches with horror as his colleagues scramble to save the Chief Minister’s son and frame an innocent man. As the body count rises, he has to ask himself whether he has what it takes to catch the killer.

Smita, struggling to come to terms with the dark secrets in her husband Karan’s mysterious past, gets sucked into a world of deceit and treachery. Unsure of whom to trust, she must first fight her inner demons before she can save herself.

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Murder at the Grand Raj Palace

by Vaseem Khan

Goodreads rating — 4.15
For a century the iconic Grand Raj Palace Hotel has welcomed the world’s elite. From film stars to foreign dignitaries, anyone who is anyone stays at the Grand Raj.

The last thing the venerable old hotel needs is a murder…

When American billionaire Hollis Burbank is found dead — the day after buying India’s most expensive painting — the authorities are keen to label it a suicide. But the man in charge of the investigation is not so sure. Chopra is called in — and discovers a hotel full of people with a reason to want Burbank dead.

Accompanied by his sidekick, baby elephant Ganesha, Chopra navigates his way through the palatial building, a journey that leads him steadily to a killer, and into the heart of darkness . . .

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Birth of a Duo

by Chandrayan Gupta

Goodreads rating — 4.12
Aditya Gokhale — a cynical, skeptical, reluctant teenager, and Radha Bose — a hard-working, professional, determined private investigator, end up working together.

Their first case is to figure out whether the death of a television actor’s son is a suicide or murder.

With Aditya’s personal life in disarray, and Radha dealing with her demons, will they be able to put their differences in personality aside and work together? Will the partnership crash and burn, or will it be the birth of a duo?

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The Calcutta Conundrum

by Soumen Chatterjee

Goodreads rating — 4.07
Pratik, son of IPS Officer Pratyush Basu returns home to Kolkata from IIT Kharagpur during the annual Durga Puja Celebration.

There was a break-in at Pratik’s childhood friend Jiah’s house a few days ago. Nothing was reported as stolen but the miscreants assaulted Jiah’s Kakadadu(Grand Uncle)- Swadhin, causing him to go into a coma.

Pratik gets involved with the police investigation and he comes across many diverse facts about Swadhin’s past life.

Will Pratik be able to connect the various facts of Swadhin’s past life and link them to the case?

Will Pratik be able to figure out the priceless possession of Swadhin, which resulted in the break-in and assault?

Will the ruthless criminals be busted?

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More Bodies Will Fall

by Ankush Saikia

Goodreads rating — 4.07
A girl from North-east India is murdered in Delhi. The main suspect is her ‘Indian’ boyfriend, but there isn’t enough evidence to prove his guilt. Amid a growing outcry about police neglect and racial injustice, detective Arjun Arora reluctantly takes on this case. Immediately, he finds himself propelled into a tangled investigation that leads him beyond the hills of Nagaland and Manipur to the Indo-Myanmar border with new suspects emerging at every turn, including an American working at the US Embassy who may or may not be a CIA spy.
The search for answers embroils him in the dangerous new realities of North-east India-riven with strife and suffering — and also brings him face-to-face with an old enemy, culminating in an unexpected climax.

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No Trespassing

by Brinda S. Narayan

Goodreads rating — 4.02

Vedika and her family move into idyllic Fantasia: a by-invitation, ultra-luxury gated community with its private forest, lake and golf course. Eager to shrug off her middle-class upbringing, Vedika actively befriends her elite neighbours.

Over time, though, she begins to sense that something is affecting her five-year-old son, Sajan. He seems foggy at times, unable to follow simple orders. A few other Fantasia children show similar behavioural oddities. Before his scheduled appointment with a doctor, Sajan dies in a freak accident. Vedika is jolted out of her numbing grief by a shocking revelation: her boy was murdered.

Anxious to find out what exactly happened to her son, Vedika starts investigating his death. As she unravels her memories and neighbours’ pasts, she finds sinister links between Fantasia and her past.

Gripping, tense and disquieting No Trespassing is a stunning work of fiction.

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