WITH reference to Sabih Mohsin’s article titled ‘Who Dunnit?’ (September 26), on writers of detective stories and science fiction, I would like to add that Zafar Umar Zuberi’s Neeli Chhatri is an original piece of work.

The publishing house Maktaba Daniyal has published three of his books in one volume with the same title and nowhere in its pre-face does it mention being an adaptation.

Also, the writer seems to have overlooked mentioning some very well-known English writers of detective stories. These include Belgian writer George Simenon (stock character Inspector Maigret), the American Erle Stanley Gardner (stock character Perry Mason), and British Sax Rohmer, creator of the character Dr Fu Manchu.

I also wish he had contributed his views on horror stories, a sub-genre much neglected in Urdu. While in English there are writers the likes of Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Bloch and Richard Matheson among others, in Urdu I can think of only two names, both incidentally female; Mrs Abdul Qadir and Hijab Imtiaz Ali. The former has three collections of horror stories to her credit and the latter has even more. Some of their stories are really blood curdling.

MOHAMMAD HASAN RABAY Rawalpindi