Sometime in the year 2015, S. Hussain Zaidi, the veteran journalist with over
20 years news reporting experience under his belt and author of over ten
notable books on the Mumbai crime scene began a collaboration with Penguin
Random House to tap fresh talent for writing and publishing books on crime,
noire and non-fiction. Gaurav Shrinagesh who is the CEO of Penguin Random
House in India happily welcomed the imprint called Blue Salt.

Among the first to write for Blue Salt Media was film maker Neeraj Pandey of
Wednesday fame who debuted as an author with his book, Ghalib Danger, a
fictional story about a gangster.

On the other end of the spectrum, a fresh 19-year-old student from the St.
Xavier’s College who was studying Mass Media at the time and interned with
Hussain Zaidi, created waves with his sensational book, The Bard of Blood, a
gripping thriller that translated into a Netflix series with collaboration from
Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies. Bilal went on to write two more books for Blue
Salt, one of them was the story of how Bollywood actor Emraan Hashmi
handled the crisis of his five-year-old son’s battle with cancer. The book aptly
titled the Kiss of Life, is still a raging bestseller.

Other Blue Salt books that got a lot of traction were the books written by
Indian Police Service officers like Neeraj Kumar, former commissioner of police,
Delhi and Amit Lodha.

Neeraj Kumar’s Dial D for Don: Inside Stories of CBI case missions is a very
popular book and has surpassed expectations. Amit Lodha’s Bihar Diaries: The
True Story of How Bihar’s Most Dangerous Criminal was caught is again
another success story.

While crime is the mainstay of the Blue Salt stable – Jyoti Shelar’s Bhais of
Bengaluru and Isaque Bagwan’s Me Against the Mumbai Underworld, there
have been a few pathbreaking first person accounts too -like journalist Jigna
Vora’s story Behind Bars in Byculla: My Days in Prison. Jigna’s book has sold
like hot cakes and the celluloid rights to the story already sold.

Blue Salt also toyed with a few fiction titles, Vibha Singh’s A Convenient Culprit
and Shadaab Amjad Khan’s Murder in Bollywood and IPS officer Brijesh Singh’s
Quantum Siege.

In a span of five years Blue Salt has published over fifteen books. Blue Salt will
continue to encourage more writers to tap their potential and bring you stories
that will stay with you forever.