Rath Saroj Kumar. The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks: Fragile Frontiers

Routledge, 2019. — 414 p.Critical questions remain unanswered on the events of the cold-blooded and devastating terror attacks in Mumbai on 26 November 2008. Investigative and introspective, this book offers a lucid and graphic account of the ill-fated day and traces the changing dynamics of terror in South Asia. Using new insights, it explores South Asia’s regional dynamics of antagonism, the ever-present challenge to the frontiers of India, Pakistan and the terrorism question, the strife in Afghanistan and the self-serving selective US ‘war on terror’. Including a new Afterword, this second edition will greatly interest those in defence, security and strategic studies, politics and international relations, peace and conflict studies, media and journalism, and South Asian studies as well as the general reader. Saroj Kumar Rath’s Fragile Frontiers stands head and shoulders above other books on the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Despite his thorough research the intimate details and his easy style make this book read like a thriller. But the seriousness of the facts about the terrorists’ strength and India’s unpreparedness that he has unearthed makes it compulsory reading for anybody interested in India’s security.