A fake clock inside a perfect alibi. A witness on a night bus who hears an empty seat reply. A pickle jar turned into a murder weapon. A lift stopped between floors with a killer inside. A dead man's phone that will not stop ringing.

The Perfect Alibi is a collection of fourteen original thriller stories set in an India you will recognize: night buses and court corridors, bank lockers and borewells, railway colonies and high-rise lifts. A retired-judge grandmother who catches the one detail everyone missed. A street sweeper the whole city looked through. A customs officer who reads luggage like faces. A con man who joins a bigger con to break it.

Every story plays fair. The clues are on the page. Lock the door anyway.