The Great Indian Heists: Stories That Are Too Crazy to Be True

Some crimes are so bold and silly that they almost seem made up. But they did happen. Sourabh Mukherjee's The Great Indian Heists is not about the crimes that discreetly made their way into police archives and were forgotten. It's about the robberies that made the news and were talked about at dinner, the ones that made people gasp and shake their heads in disbelief. You hear these stories and think, "This has to be a movie script." The credits never roll, though, since it's all true.

Mukherjee goes through old Indian crime records to find situations that are so outrageous they seem impossible. A man, who just has a convincing voice, pretends to be from the Prime Minister's Office and steals a lot of money. A gang cuts a hole in the roof of a moving train and steals its contents while it's dark and windy outside. In Punjab, thieves get into a bank vault, but things get even more mysterious when one of them is found dead under strange circumstances. Each story is like a gritty Bollywood thriller, but there is no director, no stunt doubles, and no second take.

The story in this book is strong because it doesn't go overboard. Mukherjee's stories are short and to the point, with a fast pace and details that make you think. His voice has a crispness like a newsroom, with no unnecessary tangents or fluff, but he still manages to put you right in the middle of the action. You can almost hear the door of a vault creaking, smell the dust in a tunnel that has just been dug, and feel the stress in a small police office full of rumors.

Some stories mess with time by telling them backwards, starting with the moment the crime is discovered and steadily going back in time to explain how it was planned. This framework is like how real investigations work: you know the end result, but the way there is a maze that needs to be solved. It's a smart move to keep readers interested not in what happened, but in how it happened.

This collection also has a lot of different types of things. Each crime feels different, from quick robberies at jewelry stores to train thefts that are done with incredible accuracy to corporate scams where lying is the sole weapon. The surroundings shift from busy city streets to peaceful rural communities to high-security corporate hallways, but the theme stays the same: human creativity pushed to the limit.

Mukherjee does neither praise or criticize his subjects. He shows them as they are: imperfect, brave, sometimes desperate, and sometimes very careful. You can see the ambition that drives them, the greed that makes them blind, and the courage it takes to face the possibility of going to jail or dying. There are moments of grim irony amid the shocks, like the heist that falls apart because of one small error or the conman whose own web of lies finally catches up with him.

The book is only over 140 pages long, so you can read it all in one sitting, but it's also deep enough that it will stick with you. It's great for people who enjoy real crime but would rather read about the thrill of the pursuit than pages and pages of forensic details. There are no lab reports or legalese here. Instead, you get the excitement of the plot, the thrill of carrying it out, and the twist that brings it all crashing down.

It's also the kind of novel that makes you want to Google things late at night. Every time you stop in the middle of a tale and write "Did this really happen?" into the search bar, the answer will be yes.

The Great Indian Heists is a reminder that truth can be more wilder and more exciting than fiction for anyone who likes stories of real-life bravery.

Title: The Great Indian Heists

Author: Sourabh Mukherjee

Publisher: Srishti Publishers & Distributors

Pages: 140+

Purchase Link: Buy here