Rough Streets

by Ankush Saikia

"brings Shillong of the 1980s uniquely alive..." -- Anjum Hasan

"a coming-of-age story that's hard to put down..." -- Atul Sabharwal

Rough Streets

Growing up in 1980s Shillong, schoolboy Chandan Sen learns hard lessons about loyalty, love and belonging. He gets inadvertently involved in the lives of a young female singer later found dead in a forest and the school teacher accused of her murder: slowly, over the years, Chandan will arrive at the heart of this mystery, but at a great personal cost. When he turns 18, Chandan must, against his wishes, leave behind the small-town life he knows and step into a larger India. Rough Streets is a poignant coming-of-age tale set against a backdrop of coal mining, militancy, and anti-outsider sentiments.

Ankush Saikia is the author of 10 previous books including the crime novella e-book A Natural History of Violence.

388 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 11, 2024

About the author

Latest: "Rough Streets", set in 1980s Shillong, available as an e-book. Author of "Tears of the Dragon" (Speaking Tiger, February 2023), the fourth book in the Detective Arjun Arora series ("Dead Meat", 2015; "Remember Death", 2016; and "More Bodies Will Fall", 2018; all from Penguin Random House India), also the environmental novel "The Forest Beneath The Mountains" (Speaking Tiger, March 2021), the noir thriller "The Girl from Nongrim Hills" (Penguin India, 2013), the crime thriller "Red River, Blue Hills" (Westland Books, 2015), and "A Natural History of Violence", a crime novella set in Delhi (2024). I've worked as an editor in journalism and publishing in New Delhi for over a decade. Currently based in Shillong and Tezpur in North-East India.

twitter & instagram: @ankushsaikia