Indian author takes over thriller genre

When one talks about psychological thriller novels, India has so less to offer despite Indians enjoying this genre the most. Sumit Pramanik is one such writer who is exploring the art of horror-writing and has released his first book, "The Girl Behind The Glass," which is a psychological thriller, embracing darkness and involving peculiar characters.

According to Sumit, what makes this book unique is "its creepiness".

Even the title's tagline says, "When secrets are peeled off like skin, people bleed."

A compulsive thinker, occasional poet, intense listener, clumsy biker, hushed laugher and an inept stalker, Sumit Pramanik is an IIM graduate and comes from a simple family of Durgapur, West Bengal.

In an exclusive interview with ANI, Sumit shared his journey from being an ardent reader to a thriller writer now, evolving and exploring his artistic boundaries.

He said, "I have always been fascinated by writers with original styles - Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Gillian Flynn, Justin Cronin, Stephen King and others who strive for innovative bend of thinking. Yes, I adore hardboiled detective novels, which many people label as pulp fiction. I think they are hard-hitting proses with attitude. My first love is Agatha Christie. As a child, I devoured Bengali stories of Feluda by Satyajit Ray and Byomkesh Bakshi by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay."

He began with scribbling short stories and then with some serious writing which ultimately created an understanding in him regarding the balance of different components in a story, allowed him to ink blank pages on the monitor.

Calling his debut book as his first child, published by Pirates, Pramanik explained, "I feel a rush of excitement and happiness seeing the sentences I click-clacked into an almost wrecked laptop, printed on paper. Soon as I got my copy, I thumbed it open, and took a long sniff."

When asked about the inspiration behind writing this book, Sumit shared, "Four years back, I wouldn't have imagined myself become a novelist, although I have always had a sleeping desire of writing a story. Then, one fine day, I thought about starting penning down a story, not a short story or a blog, but something big, novel-sized. I began taking book suggestions from my bibliophile friends by lying to them, saying I was planning to start a blog. They were happy to help, and I was always open to learn. It took me about eight months to prepare my first manuscript and it worked like a course in creative writing. I got professional help in editing it, and sent it off to almost all publishers and book agents in India."

'The Girl Behind The Glass' is a tale of a just-married Neelabh and Shakshi, who arrive at Hotel Infinity, desperate to take cover from unknown pursuers. Next morning a police Inspector appears, enquiring about a car that hurtled off a bridge nearby. The girl who was in the vehicle is missing. As the eyes of the hotel dwellers turn to each other, tragedy strikes again, now much closer. Can Neelabh and Shakshi escape alive from Infinity? They soon learn that the devils inside them are no less dark than the devils outside.

-ANI