Kolkata: It was a Saturday dedicated to crime stories and those who have made it their calling. On 29 March, at the Storyteller Bookstore in Kolkata’s Picnic Garden area, crime writers from across the city came together to share notes, encourage young writers and celebrate the genre. It was Kolkata’s first Crime Writers’ Festival.
At a panel discussion titled ‘Crafting Crime Stories’, writer Suhit Sen was asked by an audience member whether it is time for women sleuths to take over from their male counterparts—both within the pages of crime novels and out on the streets.
With the rise in crimes against women, it was only natural for readers to want women sleuths among readers, and for writers to create sharp, dedicated women crime solvers, Sen said. His new book The Hunter of Lalbazar is based loosely on the Park Street rape case of 2012. The capital city has witnessed such high-profile cases. The RG Kar rape and murder case from last year is the more recent one.
Changing times, changing sleuths
Kumar Kinshuk, writer of best-selling books like Fatal Belief, Ritualistic Murder, and Two Indian Girls, said the 1970s hero—like the characters played by Amitabh Bachchan, who single-handedly fought society’s ills—has changed.
“Today’s heroes, even crime fighters who take on criminals, are broken men,” he said. But it is an idea Kinshuk is not very comfortable with, especially at a time when technology has altered the mindscape of young adults who remain big consumers of crime fiction. The authors discussed the 2025 Netflix drama Adolescence, which peeks into the broken mind of 13-year-old Jamie Miller, arrested for killing a schoolmate.
“The first crimefighter I admired as a child was Batman. But as I developed some intelligence it did not make any sense,” Sen said. Sen leaned toward American crime noir and police procedurals to write his books.
“The police-politician-underworld nexus keeps coming back in crime fiction because this is a problem that won’t go away. Introducing cops as crime solvers in fiction gives it an edge as these are women and men that are beaten down by a broken system, odd hours, and alcohol and drug use,” he said.
In The Hunter of Lalbazar, the elite investigation unit of the Kolkata police is headed by joint commissioner Tanya Samanta. She is a single mother who cracks every case even as she navigates the internal politics in the force. Her male superiors and junior officers have not quite warmed up to the idea of seeing a woman in uniform.
Samanta’s character is inspired by real-life cop Damayanti Sen, now additional director general of police in West Bengal. In 2012, she led the investigation into the rape of Suzette Jordan in a moving car at Park Street. The case had made national headlines for several reasons. Jordan came out in public to share her ordeal without concealing her identity. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee initially dismissed the case, calling it a “fabricated incident”. Damyanti Sen was in fact transferred as a punishment for solving the case. Suhit Sen’s crime fiction granted Tanya Samanta the poetic justice that eluded Damayanti Sen.
Writer Prasun Roy said Kolkata lends herself easily to crime stories. His new book Devi brings together the city and one of its biggest festivals, Durga puja. The murders in his book are carried out using the different weapons in the hands of Durga. “The murders take place as Kolkata erupts in festive fervour. The city is an integral element to the story,” Roy said.
Amrita Mukherjee, who founded the Crime Writers’ Festival with Mayura Misra, told ThePrint that women sleuths have historically made for unconventional and compelling characters—from Miss Marple in Agatha Christie’s stories to Lisbeth Salander in Stieg Larsson’s Millenium series. “Modern crime thrillers have a lot of space to explore women sleuths as this is still an untapped area. Thankfully, some of our Indian crime writers, mostly women, are writing more women sleuths,” Mukherjee said.
Also read: This crime reporter turned his notes into a novel. ‘Exactly how a post-mortem is written’
Move over Byomkesh, Feluda
Even as the ghosts of fictional detectives Kiriti Roy, Byomkesh Bakshi and Feluda never left the venue, participants at the festival spoke about the new ones occupying the mindscape of Bengali crime fiction readers. Perhaps the foremost among them is Shabor Dasgupta, created by novelist Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay.
In recent years, Shabor has leaped out of the pages of Mukhopadhyay’s novels to the big screen, thanks to director Arindam Sil. He has the unique distinction of directing films based on Byomkesh, Feluda, and Shabor Dasgupta. At the festival, Sil spoke of the challenges of keeping audience interests alive in such immortal characters that have been explored many times before. “What makes Shabor stand apart is his relatability as one among us, unlike the near-perfect Feluda and Byomkesh Bakshi,” Sil said.
The panalists spoke about the need for stories that are grounded in reality and yet have complex plot structures and evolving character arcs of sleuths to hold audience or reader interest in genre films and books.
Suhit Sen said he took to crime fiction writing to “escape the tyranny of literary fiction”. “With such wonderful writing coming up, we can no longer look down upon genre fiction,” he said.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)