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![The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai Thriller Book 1) by [Damyanti Biswas]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51UhDoS6jZL._SY346_.jpg)
The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai Thriller Book 1) Kindle Edition
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On the dark streets of Mumbai, the paths of a missing dancer, a serial killer, and an inspector with a haunted past converge in an evocative thriller about lost love and murderous obsession.
After years of dancing in Mumbai’s bars, Tara Mondal was desperate for a new start. So when a client offered her a life-changing payout to indulge a harmless, if odd, fantasy, she accepted. The setup was simple: wear a blue-sequined saree, enter a crowded railway station, and escape from view in less than three minutes. It was the last time anyone saw Tara.
Thirteen years later, Tara’s lover, Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput, is still grappling with her disappearance as he faces a horrifying new crisis: on the city’s outskirts, women’s dismembered bodies are being unearthed from shallow graves. Very little links the murders, except a scattering of blue sequins and a decade’s worth of missing persons reports that correspond with major festivals.
Past and present blur as Arnav realizes he’s on the trail of a serial killer and that someone wants his investigation buried at any cost. Could the key to finding Tara and solving these murders be hidden in one of his cold cases? Or will the next body they recover be hers?
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherThomas & Mercer
- Publication dateJan. 1 2023
- File size5549 KB
From the Publisher
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Product description
From the Publisher
But for detectives, those same ephemera might be clues.
What if the person who wore those sequins never made it home? What if they weren’t the only one who had disappeared?
When his girlfriend, Tara Mondal, disappeared more than a decade before, Mumbai Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput had hoped she’d just gone on to a better life. On the surface, he’d moved on—become a successful detective and even a bit of a ladies’ man. But he’d never purged the memory of Tara, and he’d always held out hope. Now, blue sequins—like those Tara was wearing the day she disappeared—are scattered over the shallow graves of brutally murdered women. Are the sequins a coincidence or a calling card?
The Blue Bar is the start of an exciting new series following the unrelenting and appealing Inspector Rajput.
—Jessica Tribble Wells, Editor
About the Author
Damyanti Biswas is the author of You Beneath Your Skin and numerous short stories that have been published in magazines and anthologies in the US, the UK, and Asia. She has been shortlisted for Best Small Fictions and Bath Novel Awards and is coeditor of the Forge Literary Magazine. Damyanti is also a supporter of Project WHY, a program that provides quality education to underprivileged children in New Delhi. Apart from being a novelist, Damyanti is an avid reader of true crime, a blogger, and an animal lover. Her ambition has always been to live in a home with more books than any other item, and she continues to work toward that. For more information, visit www.damyantiwrites.com.
Review
“Meticulous local color matches sensitive characterizations, including of brave Mumbai police who try to overcome the deadly hazards of the corrupt system they have to work in. This searing portrait of marginalized people struggling for survival is unforgettable.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
“The Blue Bar is a meticulously crafted police procedural set in Mumbai, where the setting—both the Bollywood glitz and the city’s seedy underworld—comes to life with such intensity you can almost smell the air.” —The Big Thrill
“The Blue Bar will assault your senses as the setting comes alive in this intricately woven mystery. It examines the gritty, corrupt politics of Mumbai as an inspector tries to solve cases of dismembered women when he doesn’t know who to trust within his own ranks. A tale of loyalty, love, and revenge, this sophomore novel by Biswas is not to be missed.” —Jaime Lynn Hendricks, author of Finding Tessa and It Could Be Anyone
“Immersive, propulsive, and beautifully written. In this gaspingly authentic police procedural about a missing dancer and the inspector who cannot forget her, Biswas transports us to India—not only to investigate a grisly and sinister series of murders but to explore the dark and disturbing life of Mumbai’s bar girls. With its heartbreaking love story and Biswas’s revealing social commentary, The Blue Bar will change you, haunt you, and have you understanding the world in a different way.” —Hank Phillippi Ryan, USA Today bestselling author of Her Perfect Life
“The Blue Bar is one of those books that tattoos itself onto your bones—the luscious language, the glorious sense of place, a mystery that draws you in deep, so deep that you forget there’s a world around you. Best of all is Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput, the tender, lionhearted man at the story’s center who will stop at nothing to see that justice is done. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time.” —Jess Lourey, Edgar-nominated author of Unspeakable Things
“An intense, visceral thriller that…will leave you breathless!” —Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“In the mangrove swamps of Mumbai, dismembered bodies keep turning up. Damyanti Biswas lets us smell the spices and feel the sultry air in the city’s criminal underbelly as we root for detective Arnav and Tara to unmask the killer before he finds them first. Your pulse will race.” —Kristin Wright, author of The Darkest Flower and The Darkest Web
“Dive into Mumbai’s seedy underworld in this absorbing and fast-paced crime thriller. Damyanti Biswas never fails to impress with The Blue Bar. Filled with characters who will enchant you and others who’ll repulse you, action and mystery are weaved through corrupt police, Bollywood, and sultry dance bars. Don’t miss this gripping thriller!” —Rob Samborn, author of The Prisoner of Paradise and Painter of the Damned
“A hard-hitting tale full of twists, drama, murder, and mystery that kept me riveted to the very last word and set in a world you think you know, but have no idea.” —Yasmin Angoe, Editor’s Pick and bestselling author of Her Name Is Knight
“It’s almost unfair to describe Damyanti Biswas’s The Blue Bar as a page-turner—which, believe me, it is. But that was my problem—at every turn of the page I wanted to go back and re-read the lush descriptions of Indian culture and daily life, the marvelous character sketches, the intriguing settings at once familiar and foreign. This isn’t just a great thriller—it’s an immersive fictional experience by a writer at the top of her game.” —David Corbett, award-winning author of The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday
“This Mumbai-set story is simply gripping. It’s about a detective who realizes his lover—who went missing over a decade ago wearing a blue sequined dress—might be the victim of a serial killer. I read it in one day.” —Kellye Garrett, author of Like a Sister
--This text refers to the paperback edition.Product details
- ASIN : B09NKMQ9RK
- Publisher : Thomas & Mercer (Jan. 1 2023)
- Language : English
- File size : 5549 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 390 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #102,017 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,414 in International Mystery & Crime (Books)
- #2,616 in Police Procedurals (Kindle Store)
- #4,096 in Police Procedurals (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Damyanti Biswas lives in Singapore. Her short stories have been published in magazines in the US, UK, and Asia, and she helps edit the Forge Literary Magazine. She runs a 15-year old blog at damyantiwrites.com, where she speaks about her life, writing and reading.
Her debut crime novel, You Beneath Your Skin, has been optioned for screen by Endemol Shine. Her next, The Blue Bar, part of the Blue Mumbai series, was published Jan 1 2023 by Thomas & Mercer. In a starred review, Publisher's Weekly called it an exceptional, unforgettable crime thriller and a searing portrait of marginalized people struggling for survival.
The sequel, The Blue Monsoon, will be published in October 2023.
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As the bodies of murdered women are uncovered, the reader is given harrowing peeks into the mind of the murderer. Interwoven with these are the personal stories of bar dancer Tara and police inspector Arnav. Action scenes are humanized by elements of guilt, shame, regret, and broken trust. I was keen to find out what happened next and read the book quickly. At times it was a bit of a blur, as the characters raced from one place to another, almost always using cell phones to communicate and gather evidence.
The primary characters are well-developed and sympathetic. Enough is revealed about the secondary characters that they are distinct and memorable. I was particularly impressed by journalist (and Arnav's sometime girlfriend) Nandini, and his police colleague Tukaram. A character named Bilal is also intriguing and surprisingly sympathetic, given his relationship to the murderer.
Clues are scattered throughout the book, prompting me to formulate theories as I read about the identity of the killer. The ending includes a few shocking revelations and is both heart-wrenching and satisfying.
The first chapter was enough to captivate me and sweep me away into the muggy swamps and slums and through the crowds and the dark streets of the busiest city in India, Mumbai.
Amongst powerful elite film stars and businessmen, corrupt police officers, dangerous mafia dons, and shady government ministers, detective Arnav Singh Rajput finds himself in the middle of murder mysteries that ties the underworld, police officials, the film industry, and a strip club together. With a serial killer on the loose and cold cases coming to light, Arnav can’t help but let his mind wander to fourteen years ago when he last saw the love of his life, Tara, a young, troubled girl who worked at the strip club. She was last seen at a train station wearing a blue sequinned saree, a piece of material prominent as evidence in the recent murders Arnav is investigating.
I grew up watching Bollywood films of all genres. The Blue Bar felt like a cinematic, action and thriller-packed Indian murder mystery movie, which enhanced my reading experience to a whole new level! The vivid descriptions of criminal investigations and the underworld, the explicit settings, brilliant plotting, and character depth were written so well!
Beyond the writing lies the fleshed-out characters of Arnav and Tara. I loved young Arnav and young Tara even though with the glimpses into the past. The characters of Arnav and Tara, fourteen years later, felt like everything had changed, but their relationship and connection remained the same. I loved how they fit together so perfectly while having individual character development!
The ending felt overly fast-paced and rushed, especially after all the drama faded away, and things with the murder mystery were explained too quickly. The Blue Bar was definitely not the end of it, and despite being super excited for the sequel, I wish the ending was fleshed out and detailed more. It felt like a time jump, and certain things were skipped or ignored.
Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed The Blue Bar, and I absolutely loved the fact it had short chapters! I can’t wait to see what Damyanti Biswas comes up with in the sequel!
Thank you to the author for an ARC copy.
It is first and foremost a captivating noir mystery. It is also a provocative love story, between man and woman, between close friends, between mother and daughter. There are parallels and there are paradoxes. There are smoothly woven, subtle comparisons and then eye-blinking contrasts. It has hints of the exotic and then slaps of the downright shocking - the first in worlds some may wish to travel, and the latter in worlds most may never wish to see, but should have to. And Damyanti Biswas makes us. Because we shouldn't go through a life anywhere on this planet sticking our heads in the sand.
The ending in particular had such symbolic ironies that I found myself catching my breath. This piece of literature could be studied in any high school or university classroom, anywhere around the globe, in any language.
The Blue Bar is entertaining, educational and engrossing. I feel richer and a little more mature for having read it.
Top reviews from other countries




The plot is so well built up which only got thicker towards the end, and there is a huge surprise in the climax. Each of the character is strongly built especially that of Tara, which is also very endearing. If I were to pick out one unique thing about the book, it's the fact that the author introduces the criminal right in the early pages of the book but manages to keep the suspense going till the end. Now looking forward to the sequel.