The Hit by Amitabh Pandey [Paperback]

A powerful politician and feared crime boss orders a hit. The targets are his daughter Renu and Vinayak, the man she married for love in defiance of her father’s wishes.

The hit is carried out, but Renu lives long enough to reach a nearby hospital and deliver a healthy baby.

The child’s only living relative is Vinayak’s sister, Major Aruna Bhosale, young, single, a lawyer, martial arts instructor and small-arms expert. Grieving and furious at the loss of her brother and his wife, Aruna struggles to adapt to her new role as a mother, even as she realises that the danger to her newborn niece did not end with the funeral pyres; powerful men are working in the shadows to tie up loose ends, which now include not only the baby but also her guardian and protector. The dark world of professionally applied violence opens up before Aruna, and she can only respond in the way she has been trained to do.

The Hit is a gripping, immaculately paced thriller, with violent action unfolding in the underbelly of society, where political power and organised crime are deeply intertwined.