Emraan Hashmi launches Bilal Siddiqi's new book

Bollywood actor Emraan Hashmi launched a thriller novel, 'The Bard of Blood', written by a young author Bilal Siddiqi in India's entertainment capital Mumbai on Monday. Bilal, who never thought his novel would be published, began writing it last year out of sheer interest in the genre. The protagonist in the novel is a former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) agent, Kabir Anand, who is thrust back into a world he is trying to forget after his mentor was murdered. The story revolves around how Anand, who was forced to leave RAW after a disastrous mission in Pakistan's north-western Balochistan region, avenges his mentor and faces his enemies in a bid to save his country while dealing with the ghosts from his past. The 20-year-old author wrote the novel after researching on Balochistan and India's national capital New Delhi's power circles, and by consulting the U.S. and Indian intelligence agents, war correspondents and crime writer S. Hussain Zaidi, who happens to be Siddiqi's mentor. Siddiqi, a student of St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, is due to graduate in 2015. Recalling his first meeting with Siddiqi, Hashmi said that he thought Siddiqi was a 16-year old, but he fell off his seat when Zaidi informed him that Siddiqi was 20 and authored the book. He added that he had read Siddiqi's book and like any good book, The Bard of Blood is hard to put down. In 2014 Siddiqi wrote the official blog for the Kolkata Knight Riders, a cricket franchise in the Indian Premier League, owned by Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan. He is currently working at Red Chillies Entertainment, which is also owned by Khan.