“My readers made the casting manifest.”

The appeal of a whodunit resides in its capacity to subvert stereotypes and provoke thought in viewers, regardless of the setting—be it the busy streets of a big city or a sleepy countryside. One such whodunit is Club You to Death by Bengaluru-based Anuja Chauhan, a murder mystery set in an upscale Delhi club. Murder Mubarak, the classic mystery, has now been adapted for OTT. The movie, which stars celebrities like Sara Ali Khan, Dimple Kapadia, Pankaj Tripathi, and Karisma Kapoor, would be released the following month. “They shot in Delhi at a star hotel from the Lutyens era, and Homi Adajania has captured the club culture so vividly that it looks perfect.” The characters are a diverse group, but Chauhan notes that both the casting and the directing are excellent.

Her motivation for the crime fiction in her debut whodunit, which was published in 2021, was a “question of not if, but when.” “Whodunnits, which invariably have a whydunnit, have always been my favorite. I’m intrigued by the psychological exploration of characters’ psyches. I needed a change of pace after five successful romantic comedies, and to be very honest, being locked up at home during the lockdown made me want to kill people,” she says.

Regarding the script, Chauhan states, “I was asked to provide feedback on it after Suprotim Sengupta and Gazal Dhaliwal shared it with me.” Then, in October, I received an invitation to view the movie from Maddock Films (Dinesh Vijan and Sharada Karki). Back then, it was still a work in progress.

Chauhan maintains that the core of the novel is still there, even if the tale had to be shortened for the film adaptation. “Those who have read the book will still enjoy it because Suprotim, Gazal, and Homi added some wicked touches to the screenplay that are different from the book,” she says.

The narrative, which takes place on the Delhi Turf Club’s grounds and centers on an upcoming presidential election, is upended by the discovery of a corpse. ACP Bhavani Singh is tasked with cracking the case as a number of suspects are presented. The biggest talk among fans has been about Tripathi’s casting as the placid ACP.

He is a very talented actor, and several readers have expressed to me that after reading the book, they associated him with ACP Bhavani. Thus, I believe that my readers essentially created the casting,” Chauhan says. “I hope that the most rewarding aspect of this experience is yet to come! which is that people adore ACP Bhavani, the amiable elderly wallah policeman from Uttar Pradesh who has a kind heart, and that I will be able to write about him and his spouse Shalini for a very long time. The fact that Shalini was left out of the movie somewhat crushed my heart.

With Dharma Productions having acquired Chauhan’s second book, Baaz, which is set against the background of the 1971 Bangladesh War, there is something to look forward to. “Baaz needs a new, youthful cast. Even though Ishaan Faujdar is 24 years old, he must possess that heartbreakingly youthful aspect.