Opposhokti (Masud Rana-461)

Opposhokti (Masud Rana 461) is one more instalment in Qazi Anwar Hussain’s enormous spy-thriller series, the franchise that effectively created Bengali action fiction. From the first book in 1966 onward, Masud Rana has been a fixed point of the popular reading life of Bangladesh, sold at every railway station kiosk and bookstall in the country.

The pleasures of the series are deliberate and well-honed: short, propulsive chapters; a hero who can be hurt but cannot be broken; a global stage on which the missions unfold; and a moral world in which villains are usually genuinely villainous. Qazi Anwar Hussain has refined this formula over hundreds of volumes, and at this point in the series the writing has the easy confidence of long mastery.

Opposhokti can be read on its own — no series knowledge required — and works equally well as a single thriller or as one more night in the long Masud Rana saga.