Book Review
On the Trail of Thugs and Thieves
Pages: 155
Published by: Om Books International
ISBN 978-81-960433-6-0
By Tania Saili Bakshi
‘On the Trail of Thugs and Thieves’, yet another gripping page turner from the pen of Dehradun’s own Aloke and Maanas Lal, has come. The book recently hit the stands.
Over 155 pages, the gifted story-tellers bring to light eight hand-picked case studies from Aloke Lal’s career as an IPS officer spanning thirty-seven years. Sieving through a never-ending list of cases of burglaries and theft from the yellowing pages of the police records, the author interlaces them with personal anecdotes with his pen dipped in memory.
Co-author Maanas Lal, Aloke’s talented son, has once again used his skills, creasing out the fine lines to telling effect. Adding another feather to his cap, the cover art and illustrations in the book have also been done by Manaas Lal, himself, which enhance the stories.
On the Trail of Thugs and Thieves harks back to the time when Aloke Lal was posted as Assistant Superintendent of Police in Gorakhpur, one of the many districts he was posted in. It gives the readers a glimpse into the Hindi Heartland and its villages, districts and neighbouring states. The eight stories, close to the author’s heart are interlaced with wit, humour, real-life incidents as the father-son team unravel one interesting case after the other with a great deal of sensitivity.
The gripping stories not only expose inhumanity of the lowest kind, but also evoke moral outrage and, at times, shake our collective conscience.The Lals steer towards more positive, more constructive ways of looking at how the police force works, rather than amplifying the negative stuff.
From Zeenat Aman to the Rescue to Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh – the Not-so-holy Trinity; from the beginning of the book to the very end, the crime-writing duo keep the readers glued to the pages as one story outdoes the next.
This riveting read is another valuable addition to the corpus of books on law and order administration, urban and rural policing and crime non-fiction!
Hard to put down! The books makes for a perfect read this monsoon. A must-have on your bookshelf!
