Humankind, I like to believe, can be divided into two groups: one group swears by science fiction, the other cherishes only mysteries. I belong to the latter. Thus begins C. M. Naim s homage to the writers who once provided generations of Urdu-speaking mystery-lovers hours of sleepless delight. Meticulously researched, this informal history unravels how crime fiction first originated in Europe and North America in the nineteenth century, how Urdu writers responded to this new stimulus, and the rapid emergence of what then became the jasusi adab in Urdu. Described as wonder-inducing and sleep-depriving, bearing titles like Khuni Chhatri (The Murderous Umbrella), Tilismi Burj (The Magic Turret), and Mistriz af Dihli (The Mysteries of Delhi), Urdu thrillers sold in the thousands. Aficionados of the Netflix series Lupin may be surprised to learn that a century ago, Maurice Leblanc s gentleman thief, Arsene Lupin, was adored by Urdu readers in his desi avatar, Bahram, transcreated by Zafar Omar in a 1916 bestseller that made Bahram a household name. We discover Tirath Ram Ferozepuri, the prodigious translator of mysteries and thrillers 114-odd titles, spanning 60,000 pages. We meet Nadeem Sahba i, of unfettered imagination, who produced masterpieces of Urdu pulp fiction. Urdu crime writers were quick to capture the new material realities of urban India from the exotic mannequins, latex masks and truth-serum to the everyday advertisements, gramophones and cameras. Significantly, they also highlighted India s new secular spaces railway platforms, public parks, libraries, restaurants and cinemas, where people interacted, unburdened by tradition or identity in ways that other Urdu writers failed to do. Their stories hold a mirror to the idea of India before independence. Naim s book, the first on the subject, will delight and inform anyone passionate about crime fiction in any language.