Daylight Robbery (novel)
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First edition cover | |
| Author | Surender Mohan Pathak |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Shelle Studio |
| Country | India |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime Fiction |
| Publisher | Blaft Books |
Publication date | October 2010 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 242 |
| ISBN | 978-81-906056-9-4 |
| Preceded by | The 65 Lakh Heist |
Daylight Robbery is a thriller[1] novel written by Surender Mohan Pathak, a Hindi writer from Delhi, India.Originally published in 1980[2] by Shanu Paperbacks, it was translated into English by Sudarshan Purohit[3] and published by Blaft Publications, Chennai, India in 2010.
It is the 8th novel in the Vimal series, and revolves around the robbery of a payroll van in Agra. The novel is unique in the sense that this is the first time Vimal engages in a crime for his own personal benefit (till now all he did was under threat of other hard-core criminals). Dawarkanath, an aged gambler form Agra, tells him of a great artist, a plastic surgeon called Dr. Earl Slater, who would operate only on wanted Indian criminals (for an amazingly high fee, of course).[4] If Vimal (actual name Sardar Surender Singh Sohal), a wanted criminal in several Indian states and NCR, can get a new face, he can live safe from both the law and its breakers. That's what pulls him in Dwarkanath's amazingly inhuman scheme - it would involve crashing the cash-carrying armoured van "like a piano accordion" ! along with the driver and security guard. The officer in charge of Ratanakar Steel Mill, whose weak point is his shamelessly materialistic wife, is blackmailed to give-in a very complicated machination, exploiting his love for gambling. The team somehow pulls off their plan but things (as they always happen to poor Vimal) go wrong - Dwarkanath dies of a heart attack, the young and naive Kooka (another cooperator) loses both money and life, the money goes back to where it belongs and Vimal is left with empty pockets, his dream of a new face shattered and a long dark road full of underworld adventures stretching in front of him.
References
- ↑ The term is being used here is general sense - we normally call all crime-fiction thriller ( because it thrills us ). But in case of Pathak "thriller" novels only mean those novels that do NOT have Sunil, Vimal or Sudhir ! This is an understanding developed between Pathak and his readers over years. Thus strictly speaking this novel is especially NOT a thriller, being a Vimal Series
- ↑ When Pulp Sparkles
- ↑ This is the second time Purohit is translating Pathak from hindi to english for Blaft. The first was Vimal's The 65 Lakh Heist
- ↑ Concepts like changing faces with plastic surgery were virtually unheard of in '80s in India. That's what is great about Pathak