
THE WISH LIST
For all its newfound zing, the popular fiction market in English language is still not diverse or robust enough as it is abroad. Hello, we don’t even have a mystery writer yet. “I have tried and failed to commission a murder mystery,” says Roy despairingly. There is some hope in Meenakshi Liddle, another first-time writer who is crafting a detective story set in the Mughal period. Besides an Agatha Christie, we want a homegrown Dick Francis, a Stephen King and a Danielle Steele for the soppy ones. Why not? The shelf has to fill up.