Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
and translated by
Bilal Tanweer
Bilal Tanweer is a Pakistani people, Pakistani writer and translator from Lahore, Pakistan. His novel ''The Scatter Here Is Too Great'' was awarded the Shakti Bhatt Prize, Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize in 2014, and was shortlisted for the DSC Pri ...
. It also carries another novella ''Shootout at the Rocks''. Both feature the stock character Imran, Ibne Safi, whose actual name was Asrar Narvi, wrote about 122 novels under this
Imran Series
The ''Imran'' Series (Urdu عمران سیریز) is an Urdu spy novel series created by Pakistani writer Ibn-e-Safi. Ali Imran is the pivotal character, a comical secret agent who controls the Secret Service as X-2 but appears to work as a no ...
. In the first story, the protagonist finds dead people in an empty house with three knife wounds each placed at exactly five inches. The hero who is considered an idiot by his secret-service colleagues solves the case in his own unique way between poetic recitations of Ghalib and praises of Indian film heroines. In the second story, a colonel called Zargham receives mysterious wooden animal-shaped toys, that we find later, are signature of ''Li Yu Ka'', a two hundred years old brotherhood of deadly killers, and very soon the man is the thick of big trouble from which only the legendary Imran can be of any help.
The book cover has a controversial quotation by
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictiona ...
that claims that the mystery queen acknowledged Safi's monopoly over originality in the
genre
Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
. Agatha Christie had a short transit stay at Karachi Airport some time in 1965 and one of the directors of
Radio Pakistan
Radio Pakistan serves as the national public broadcaster for radio in Pakistan. Although some local stations predate Radio Pakistan's founding, it is the oldest existing broadcasting network in Pakistan. The network was established on 14 August ...
Karachi, Razi Akhtar Shauq, met her at the airport. He quoted this in a meeting with his friends. This quote was printed in a 1972 Urdu magazine. All other witnesses are dead and Agatha's son when contacted failed to recall even her travel to Pakistan