Lashkar

Robert Ludlum is a very famous author in the spy and war genre. Mukul Deva may be considered his Indian counterpart with best sellers like Lashkar and Salim Must Die.

Lashkar is the story of India's response to a terrorist attack in Delhi by LeT. The story intersperses some real events with fiction and by the end of the book you only wish that the fictional portions were true. The story starts off with serial blasts in Delhi and how some of the perpetrators of the attack give the law enforcement agencies a miss. The Indian government which is tired of exposing Pakistan's proxy war decides enough is enough and goes after the masterminds and the terrorists involved (this is is part which you wish was non-fiction, but alas!). There is a parallel story of Iqbal, a terrorist who is seeking redemption for the grave crimes he committed.

Unlike a Ludlum, this book is light on details but the fast pace and the non-linear narration more than make up for it and you are gripped on to the book till the last page.