From digital relationships to corporate intrigue, a reading guide for people who enjoy asking why someone made that choice.
Key takeaways
- Your interests can guide your festival browsing more effectively than a long shopping list.
- Technology thrillers become compelling when technological possibilities meet recognisable human desires, fears and choices.
- Fiction about relationships, corporate life and geopolitics can explore the same underlying question – whom do we trust, and why?
- Pairing a thriller with relevant nonfiction can deepen your understanding of the world behind the story.
- The books discussed here will be available at Pune Book Festival 2026.
Chapter text:
There is a particular pleasure in finishing a thriller and wondering what you would have done in the same situation. Would you have trusted the message? Told your friend? Reported your colleague? Walked away when something first felt wrong?
From the comfort of a reading chair, the answers can seem obvious. Inside a story, with affection, ambition, loyalty or reputation at stake, they become less comfortable. That is the kind of reading I enjoy and the territory I explore in my fiction.
If you are preparing to visit Pune Book Festival 2026, consider arriving with a few questions alongside your list of authors. Questions can lead you across genres and towards books you might otherwise overlook.
Begin With the Human Question
“Technology thriller” may suggest hackers, surveillance systems, secret laboratories or someone typing furiously while a clock counts down. Those elements create suspense. But a story also needs its characters with motives and reasons to act.
Why does someone share a secret with a stranger? Why does an employee remain silent about a troubling instruction? Why does an intelligent person dismiss a warning?
Technology changes what people can do, how quickly they can do it and how far the consequences can travel. The motives may be familiar – love, fear, resentment, status, money or the desire to belong.
When browsing, ask yourself which of those human questions interests you most.
If Relationships Interest You, Look for Stories About Secrets and Leverage
A person may enter a dating app believing that a different name and photograph will keep their identity concealed. But what happens when someone recognises them? The balance of power changes. Someone else now knows a secret whose exposure could damage a relationship.
In Love Swipe Blackmail, the protagonist’s concealed identity is discovered by someone who can deliver harm. That person also knows the protagonist’s fiancée. A private act becomes leverage, bringing deception, blackmail and the threat of intimate betrayal into the story.
In the app world, one person holds information that the other fears revelation of. While the relationship outside the app rests on an incomplete understanding of the truth, hence an unequal level of trust.
If these themes interest you, explore relationship fiction and psychological suspense alongside technology thrillers. Look for stories that ask – how do people respond when someone gains power over what they most want to keep hidden?
If Working Life Interests You, Look for Stories Where Personal Revenge Meets Institutional Power
An organisation gives people access, authority and resources to carry out their responsibilities. What happens when someone turns that power towards settling a personal score? A moment of anger can have consequences far beyond the original grievance. The person seeking revenge has the means to act, while those being targeted may have little understanding of the power being used against them.
Shadow Play: Love And Blackmail, the sequel to Love Swipe Blackmail, explores this collision. In a weak moment driven by anger and revenge, someone strikes at their past, misusing the access and power their organisation has entrusted to them. In the process they also create collateral damage. The tension and damage come from not what they were authorised to do, but what they choose to do when resentment took over.
If these questions interest you, explore corporate thrillers, psychological suspense and investigative accounts of institutional misconduct. Look for stories that ask – what happens when a private grievance gains access to institutional power?
If Technology Interests You, Ask Whose Intentions it Serves
Technology provides with you with access. Access to strangers and known alike. It also provides you with power. Technology however, does not come with intent. The intent behind it comes from its user (with the exception of AI) – their motives, their relationships and the restraints they are willing to abandon.
A message sent on a dating app creates no leverage for the app. It creates leverage for the person who wants to use the message in a certain way. Likewise, organisation level resources and authority can be used for personal purposes only if the user intends so.
While browsing at Pune Book Festival, look for fiction and nonfiction that explores this connection between capability and intention. Cybercrime, surveillance, digital identities and AI offer different settings for a recurring question – what happens when someone uses the power available to them to pursue a personal end?
Choose Moral Dilemmas That Resist Easy Answers
A moral dilemma asks a character more than choosing between an obviously good action and an obviously bad one.
Consider a person who can protect a friend only by concealing or trading information that someone else needs. Or an employee whose truthful disclosure could expose wrongdoing while harming innocent colleagues. The competing obligations make the choice difficult.
When you sample a novel, look for evidence that its characters have something meaningful to lose. Their decisions should emerge from the lives they have lived, the relationships they value and the pressures they face.
You may still think they chose badly. But understanding why they chose that way can be more rewarding than simply identifying the villain.
Carry A Reading Compass to the Festival
Before visiting, choose three directions.
One human theme – trust, loyalty, ambition or revenge.
One technological interest – digital relationships, surveillance, cybercrime or AI.
One unfamiliar form – translated fiction, investigative nonfiction, biography or short stories.
Then ask exhibitors for recommendations at the intersection.
‘I enjoy stories about people being manipulated through technology’ gives someone a more useful starting point than ‘Suggest a thriller.’
As I think about returning to Pune, where I studied at SIBM from 1999 to 2001, I am looking forward to that pleasure of discovery too. A familiar city can still introduce you to an unfamiliar writer.
And a good book can leave you reconsidering a choice you had once thought easy.
FAQs
What should I read before visiting Pune Book Festival 2026?
Start with a book related to an interest you want to explore at the festival. A thriller about trust, a work of nonfiction about technology or a novel involving difficult choices can help you identify questions to guide your browsing.
What is a technology thriller?
A technology thriller is a suspense novel in which technology plays a significant role in the conflict. It might involve cybercrime, surveillance, digital relationships or artificial intelligence, alongside the motives and decisions of the people using those systems.
Can I enjoy technology thrillers without a technical background?
Yes. Choose books that make the relevant technology understandable through the story. Reading a few pages before buying can help you judge whether the level of technical detail suits you.
What kinds of books explore trust and deception?
Psychological suspense, relationship fiction, corporate thrillers, espionage novels and investigative nonfiction can all explore trust and deception. Look at the book’s central conflict rather than relying only on its genre label.
How do Love Swipe Blackmail and Shadow Play connect?
Both explore relationships, technology and moral dilemmas. Love Swipe Blackmail focuses on interpersonal deception and digital relationships. Shadow Play: Love And Blackmail is its sequel that extends the inquiry into corporate intrigue, cyber threats and reputational harm.
What nonfiction pairs well with technology thrillers?
Books about psychology, cybersecurity, organisational behaviour, surveillance, AI and geopolitical competition can complement technology thrillers. Choose a subject that answers a question the novel left you wanting to investigate.
Will these books be available at Pune Book Festival 2026?
This article offers reading directions and recommendations, rather than a confirmed festival stock list. Check participating publishers and exhibitors, or contact the relevant publisher, before travelling specifically to purchase a title.