ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jasper was born and raised in one of Delhi’s most notorious areas, in close proximity to criminals; enabling him to have intricate insights into the world of criminals and crime. As he grew up, he came across a lot of criminals with various backgrounds hailing from almost all parts of north India. Some were friends and some foes. Everyone had their own unique stories to tell. This story is Jasper’s attempt to capture some of his personal experiences and translate them into a piece of fiction to entertain his readers.
He had written the synopsis of this story almost six years ago but he never had the inclination to write the complete story because of his hectic work schedule….till his wife and children really egged him on to finally finish it. Thus, this book qualifies to be the consequence of the direct nagging of the ‘wife and the kids’ and therefore dedicated to them.
It seems as if it was destiny that made him switch his graduation course from Commerce to English Literature as today that very choice of his course has played a pivotal role in evolving and embellishing his writing abilities.

BLURB

And He Wanted Me Dead….is an intriguing crime and suspense thriller, wherein inspector Raj is an honest, hardened and hardworking cop. His dedication toward his profession and duty is outstanding….his career record unblemished….until now!
His entire reputation is at stake when he is called in to investigate an accident. What looks like a road accident….is it really a mere accident or is there something more ghastly to it? The more the inspector digs deeper to unravel the truth, the more flummoxed he becomes. Even though his investigation is impeccable yet his frustrations rise sky high as it heads nowhere but straight into dead ends every time he thinks he has a solid lead. His personal life is already in shambles and now his professional life is also crumbling right in front of his eyes because of this case and a series of other killings which occur in his jurisdiction.
Will he be able to solve these mysteries? Will he be able to apprehend the perpetrators and bring them to justice? Will he be able to keep his reputation of a brilliant investigating officer intact?
Discover the answers to all these queries in this fast paced crime thriller. A story of loyalty, friendship and deception….



Preview, 1000 words

It was a scorching and humid day. The much awaited rains were evasive for the last one week now. New Delhi was reeling under God’s wrath, it seemed. Inspector Raj was restlessly shifting in his seat as he was drowned in a huge heap of files. He had been in the police force for the last twenty years now and was very dedicated to his job. He firmly believed in the oath of service to mankind he had taken at the police academy, before he got commissioned. Although, there were occasions when he had to buckle down under the pressure of his seniors but he always felt very awkward and uncomfortable whenever he had to accommodate them. He mostly tried to stick to his conscience as he wanted to be at peace with himself. As he tried hard to concentrate on the file in front of him, he could not conceal his irritation when his cell phone suddenly screamed out aloud, jolting the entire chamber’s eerie silence. A shrieking voice informed him that there had been an accident near the jungles off the National Highway No. 1, near Alipur and that the victim was dead.
Inspector Raj was dusky, handsome and a well-built man who was around six feet and two inches tall. He was a self-imposed bachelor. He was a part of the elite Crime Branch Unit of the Delhi Police, thus he was surprised to get this call as they said it was an accident. However, later after enquiring he understood as to why they had called him. The patrolling party who had reached the scene first had suspected it to be more than just a mere accident; therefore it was prudent to have an expert’s opinion to reach to the logical conclusion.
It was reported that a car had burnt down, consuming the poor driver along with it. “Must be one of those drunkards driving crazy on top of a CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) or an LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) fuel tank,” loudly exclaimed Inspector Raj as he gathered a posse of policemen under his charge and got into the official jeep to reach the site of the accident. It took them almost forty-five minutes to reach the spot. Almost two third of the burnt sedan was consumed by the furious flames. It seemed as if the accident took place the previous night and was not discovered until the next morning, simply because the spot was a very secluded patch of the road and was seldom used, even though being right off the highway. As inspector Raj alighted from his jeep, he saw the local villagers, who might have got wind of the accident, already swarming the place. The local police constables were making unsuccessful attempts to keep the crowd at bay.
As he reached the spot his nostrils were greeted by the stench of burnt flesh, nauseating to a normal person but not to a hardened hand like him. He sighed in disbelief at the number of people gathered around as if witnessing a spectacle. He felt sick to see people marvel at such a tragic death of a fellow human, instead of letting the dead be, the crowd seemed to extract a cheap thrill. “Respect for anything and everything has gone down the drain”, he thought. The sight of the maddening crowd got him so infuriated that he ordered a charge against the crowd to break them up and to get the site cleared for the investigators.
As soon as the crowd was broken up and the site cleared for inspection, inspector Raj moved toward the car. The front seating section of the car was completely burnt; the plastic parts had melted down beyond recognizable shape. On the driver’s seat lay the deceased, now reduced to a charred greyish-black skeleton. Barring some flesh still clinging on loyally here and there, not much was left of the poor soul. The calf muscles were somehow slightly intact on the right foot. The shoes on the skeleton clearly indicated that it was a male who had lost his life so painfully. The inspector looked closely and saw a charred watch strung around the bones at the wrist of the deceased, it looked like an expensive one, maybe a Rolex and he also found the remains of a cell phone. The door of the car was jammed due to the expansion caused by the immense heat created by the fire. On close scrutiny, he observed that the car was not operating either on CNG or LPG as what he had suspected initially. “It has got to be a wiring short circuit”, declared one of the policemen on the site. Ignoring the comment, inspector Raj started the routine inspection of the area. Unlike most of his other colleagues he liked to get to the bottom of things to unravel the truth. He took pride in the fact that God had blessed him with such a divine job so as to bring the truth to the fore and to get justice to the destitute, downtrodden and the dead.
He could not explain why, but he had a strong hunch that the patrolling party might be right and that this was more than an accident. Experience had taught him not to take anything at its face value, to dig deeper and deeper was his second nature. “Call for the forensics and cordon off the entire bloody area. Keep these stupid urchins away, lest we lose more evidence ‘coz of these arses,” screamed inspector Raj instinctively to his sub-ordinates, who scrambled to follow his instructions. The inspector knew that the rampage caused by the villagers at the site had already done a lot of damage to the evidence, but hoped that they get enough to nail the son of a bitch who had committed such a ghastly crime.