Title: Eleventh Hour
Author: S Hussain Zaidi
Publisher: HarperCollins India
Pages: 256
Price: Rs 167
Coming soon to a theatre near you: Eleventh Hour! Well, if history has taught us anything, it’s that S Hussain Zaidi’s crime thrillers are adapted into movies.
Several of his books have been converted into movies including the eponymous Black Friday, Shootout at Wadala, based on Dongri to Dubai and Phantom, based on Mumbai Avengers. Eleventh Hour seems destined to join this list. It is a potboiler and reads like a movie script more than a novel. The twists, dialogues and characterisations are perfect for the big screen or, in keeping with the times,
Netflix.
Former investigative journalist Zaidi’s books including Black Friday, Mumbai Avengers, Dongri to Dubai, and Byculla to Bangkok have all been fictionalized accounts but had their roots in real life incidents. Eleventh Hour is no different.
The plot follows Superintendent of Police Vikrant Singh. It is a tale of Vikrant’s journey to redemption after punching the Pakistan High Commissioner in the face. It’s about tracking five terrorists who have broken out of a Bhopal jail and, along the way, Vikrant and his mentor Inspector General of Police Shahwaz Ali Mirza have to find a huge stash of RDX that has remained undiscovered since the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts to ensure that another terror attack doesn’t take place; also rescue people from a hijacked cruise liner and much more.
It may start off slowly but once it picks up pace the book is a joyride. Zaidi’s writing is crisp and tighter than many others writing in the same genre. While it will be appropriate to say that there is nothing new in the plotline, it also needs to be stressed that Zaidi manages to package and sell it better than most. He isn’t competing with the Scandinavian crime thriller writers. He is aware of his constituency and does a good job ensuring that they are happy campers. Pick this thriller if you want to read about a ‘heroic’ cop and his team and their fight against members of the Indian Mujahideen who are looking to establish ‘Universal Caliphate’.
