These are times when headlines are filled with stories of digital-arrest scams, Jamtara-style phishing rackets and shadowy call centres preying on vulnerable people across borders. Technology has opened doors which were once unimaginable, but it has also thrown open new corridors for high-tech crime. Every smartphone notification carries both opportunity and risk, and the rise of cyber syndicates presents a reminder that even dreams of a better life can become traps. Shailendra Jha’s Press 9 for a Crime is set against this contemporary backdrop, and, therefore, feels familiar as it mirrors the reality one hears or reads about almost every day.
When a Dream Job Becomes a Digital Trap
The book revolves around the Anand family, living in a cramped lower-income Delhi neighbourhood where aspirations are high and options limited. Their hopes rest on Atul, the eldest son, who’s responsible, hardworking and the one supposed to elevate the family to a more secure future. When he lands a promising job in Bangkok, it appears to be the long-awaited turning point. But in the world Jha portrays, good fortune is often the first step into a deep and dangerous maze. Atul’s disappearance after arriving in Bangkok is the opening of a dark tunnel into a cyber scam syndicate headquartered in Cambodia. His family’s confusion and helplessness echo the emotions of countless real-life families who struggle to navigate systems stacked against them.
Aseem, the younger brother, becomes the emotional engine of the story. Known for his impulsive decisions, he is the least likely hero, and the most compelling. His determination to track down Atul is born not out of strategy but out of pure brotherly instinct. Without resources, without connections and without a coherent plan, he ventures into the dangerous world of cross-border crime networks. The journey is messy, terrifying and full of missteps, but it captures something powerful about the ordinary individual pushed to extraordinary lengths by desperation and love.
Beyond the Code
Jha uses the Anand family as a lens to examine the anatomy of cybercrime— how these massive scam operations function and how they feed on economic vulnerability. Every step of Aseem’s journey exposes another layer of exploitation, which includes fraudulent job agents selling illusions of foreign success, criminal syndicates operating with military precision, and the horrifying transformation of victims into unwilling workers trapped inside scam hubs. The book forces the reader to confront the uncomfortable truth that cybercrime is not just about technology, but about people, those who scam and those who are scammed, and those who are forced into doing both.
What gives the novel its momentum is its pace. The language is direct, accessible and uncensored, slipping seamlessly between Indian-English and Hindi in a way that most urban readers will instantly recognise.
Jha brings the same urgency and realism that shaped the OTT series Grahan, created by him on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots at Bokaro in Jharkhand. His characters bleed, panic, hope and persist. The plot is tight and never loses sight of the emotional aspects of a family refusing to give up on each other. While the book brings out the brutality of digital exploitation, it does not slip into cynicism. The lesson it offers is that resilience does pay eventually.
Press 9 for a Crime is not just a thriller. It holds up a mirror to the digital age while reminding that while every scam has a story of shattered trust behind it, salvation sometimes emerges from the most unexpected place—a stubborn younger brother who refuses to stop fighting in this case. In a world where technology has made crime borderless, Jha’s novel brings to the fore that when it comes to protecting people one loves and cares for, there are indeed no borders.
