Om Prakash Sharma

Om Prakash Sharma (25 December 1924 – 14 October 1998) popularly known as Janpriya Lekhak Om Prakash Sharma, is recognized as one of the foremost and most talented writers of detective fiction in Hindi after Devaki Nandan Khatri. He has more than 450 Hindi detective novels to his credit.
Sharma was wholeheartedly in awe of Sharat Chandra Chatterji's writings. Chatterji's writing style and the depiction of his characters had an immense impact on Sharma. Though, Om Prakash Sharma wrote populist detective novels, he had the acumen of writing good quality contemporary and historical literature as well as poetry. He had keen interest in Indian classical music. He was very fond of Nirguni bhajans hymns recital by Kumar Gandharva and many more Indian Classical Singers.
What distinguished him was his manner of creating a suspense and interest in the script through actual incidents on one hand and imagination on the other, thereby creating a curiosity in the readers mind as to what shall happen next. The main characters of his writing include Rajesh, Jagat, Jayant, Jagan, Gopali, Bandook Singh, Chief Chakravarti, Bhuvan, Father William and many more. Rajesh was considered to be the human face of his writings, who many times on several occasions was preempted as the real time character.
He authored some four or five novels featuring 'Bhootnath' as his tribute to the legendary Devaki Nandan Khatri. He also named his imaginary colony, official residence of personnel of 'Kendriya Khufia Vibhag' as 'Bhootnath Colony'.
In his social attributions, he wrote against social oppression. In his historical inscriptions, 'Neeli Ghodi Ka Sawar', and 'Phir Aaya Toofan' were very popular.
After writing for many publishing houses, he started to write for his own publication Janpriya Prakashan " . Many of his novels were huge hit at a time, when television as a medium of entertainment was not so common. Though, he received several offers to write for Hindi feature films, he denied, as he apprehended the material life and loved his slow peaceful but creative life.
Many fake novels were also published in his name as 'Vikrant' being its main character.