Play

Bestselling author Chetan Bhagat revealed the cover, title and a “movie-style” trailer for his new book in Mumbai on Monday. The Girl in Room 105, Bhagat’s eighth novel, is a departure from his usual style, marking his first attempt at a thriller, though, of course, there’s a number in the title.

A slick trailer (above) for the book, shot by Mohit Suri (who also directed the film adaptation of Bhagat’s Half Girlfriend) and starring Vikrant Massey, shows that the book is about a young man, Keshav Rajpurohit who teaches in a small coaching centre, drinks like a fish and is the son of a “senior member of the RSS”. Rajpurohit is still hung up on his ex-girlfriend, Zara Lone, a Kashmiri Muslim who broke up with him four years ago. When he goes to visit Lone on her birthday after unexpectedly receiving a series of WhatsApp messages from her, he’s in for a surprise.

“I am excited to explore the thriller genre for the first time and readers who have previewed the book have given a fantastic response to it,” Bhagat said about the novel, which he has called an “unlove story”.

With five of his novels already adapted into films and the remaining in production, Bhagat and his new publishers, Amazon, who signed him for a six-book deal earlier in 2018, appear to have decided to forego a blurb and go straight to video instead. “We now live in an era of screen-invasion and we have to find innovative ways to reach millions of readers,” Bhagat said about the trailer.

The Girl in Room 105 will be published in October.