As humans, we tend to live vicariously. We love true crime stories. We will read all the thrillers we can get our hands on. We will watch every single show that has the most miniscule chance to get our adrenaline racing. We will sometimes even follow the news in horrified awe, glad that we aren’t the subject of the piece.

Pakistan hasn’t really produced brilliant cinema, television, or theatre in the thriller genre…ever. Dhuaan aired over 25 years ago, and it was fine for 1994, but the world has since moved on. Though we have a rich literary history, thriller isn’t a well-explored genre in that category either. While you may be part of the generation to have read, or at least heard about Ibne Safi or Inspector Jamshed and his ragtag crew, we’re just going to have to agree that these were not thrillers. And it may be sad, but perhaps the generation of readers we are raising right now may not be partial to Urdu fiction.

That said, Pakistan has given the world some solid English language writers in the shape of Mohammad Hanif, Nadeem Aslam, Kamila Shamsie, and Shandana Minhas. Their hard-hitting, or slice-of-life productions are great, and can be tucked into the broad genres of the personal impact something larger-than-life like a huge political event can have on a community or individual. What we have missed though, in the race to writing the Great Pakistani Novel for a global audience, is blatantly gritty crime fiction. We write beautifully about the dual scents of bougainvillea and diesel wafting on the salty Karachi air, or about the rise and fall of great dictators, but sometimes the story – raw, unabashed, wounded words strung together – gets lost in the nuance of political statement or social commentary.

The last 10 years or so have seen a shift towards writers telling the stories close to their heart, not wrapped in the foil of political and social relevance. Imran Yusuf’s play Stumped! is a great example of just out and out storytelling about match fixing. Shandana Minhas captures the Pakistani middle-class, often, and perfectly. Omar Shahid Hamid has the market cornered on the true crime genre from the law enforcer’s point of view.

What is also brilliant about Hamid’s stories is that one can spot the real-life incidents and people he alludes to. The novels serve as a side to the events and public figures we grew up and grew older with and which was simply not reported, nor commented upon, in the news.

There is also an entire generation between the one that grew in the Zia times that we simply cannot stop talking about, to the generation that grew up with the War on Terror post 9/11, which has been somewhat neglected.

One of the more interesting depictions of that generation - the one that was already of age in 2001 and all the events that shaped global politics thereafter - its passions and proclivities, makes itself known in Abdul Qadir’s debut novel Vapour Trails. Now, some of you may think that a bunch of people getting high, selling drugs, and laundering their money isn’t exactly nouveau so to speak, and anyway, didn’t Moth Smoke do it ages ago?

While Vapour Trails protagonists Ali and Ahmed too have grown into men within the comforts of their privileged pedigrees, what they are not ready for is being thrust into a world that is unlike theirs, when they decide to give up the ghost of their illicit business. Nor do they feel like themselves where they are and where they feel they actually belong.

What this novel, by a brand-new writer, serves as is an honest look at the way Pakistanis of a certain age grew up. Qadir doesn’t write for a particular generation, but his experiences do speak through his words.

“I really just wanted to write about things that aren’t bound by a generation,” he says, “these issues, so to speak, are future-proof. We’ve all grown up around guys like these, during times like these - I felt it was important to put my book out there with the rest of them.”

What Qadir says is true, but also reflective of the place he grew up in. The writer, originally from Islamabad, has a handle on the common coming-of-age experience of the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, but views it through the filter of someone who grew up in a very insular community, with limited choices for recreation.

Perhaps, optimistically, Vapour Trails, ushers in a new wave of writers bringing to the table experiences that aren’t just commentary on how boring and ridiculous and funny it is to be rich, or the joys of eating mangoes in a veranda during peak monsoon, or how the establishment wrecked their marriage.

While all the literary efforts by Pakistani authors have their place in the world, and everything must be read – though you can skip Beautiful From This Angle – sometimes all one wants is a normal story. Just regular, run-of-the-mill, like-people-you-know situations and characters, going through stuff you can relate to.

The problem, as Abdul Qadir points out is this: “local fiction is incredibly important. But I feel that the publishing scene in Pakistan is quite limiting in terms of opportunity, distribution, representation, and solid advice. I don’t think there’s an issue of talent here; it’s more an issue of exposure.”

Pakistan’s music industry organized and aligned itself long ago, when it became clear there was enough talent to organize, and a big enough audience to sell that talent to. Perhaps it is time the literary circle of Pakistan put their heads together, and their weight behind young voices in Pakistani fiction, across all genres and styles.