You don’t have to like Kkrishnaa but you sure can’t ignore her. The protagonist of Smita Jain’s debut novel Kkrishnaa’s Konfessions (Westland, Rs 250) is smart, sexy and endearingly stupid at times. A scriptwriter for the imaginatively named television soap Kkangan Sauten Ke, Kkrishnaa is facing a writer’s block that threatens to ruin her career. It does not help that the Creative Director of the series knows about the problem and intends to give the script’s reins to Kkrishnaa’s adversary Dev. Desperate for fodder, she borrows her perverted neighbour’s telescope and her night watch almost spells death for her: Kkrishnaa witnesses a murder and is on the run from the killer who has spotted her. What follows is a hilarious, rip-roaring race to stay alive and stay on air.

The entertainment industry is familiar turf for 35-year-old Jain. Since 2002, she has scripted a host of television serials, including Remix and India Calling on Star One and Bombay Talking on Zee Café. But Jain isn’t disclosing if she and her protagonist are one and the same. “Writing the book was joyful and frustrating. I mainly write thrillers and comedies. Writing melodrama does not come naturally to me; I can never get the right emotional quotient. So, I started writing a story about a TV soap writer,” says Jain who is a fan of detective fiction but admits that reading crime fiction and writing it are poles apart.