Shesh, or Venkatraman Sheshashayee, is a retired CEO living in Singapore whose first novel, Sixty is the New Assassin, will be made available to buy on Amazon come Monday.
Armed with degrees in marine engineering and management, he first sailed across half the known world and then built businesses across most of the rest of it. In his career spanning 38 years, he built companies from scratch, transformed them and turned them around. Roles included being the CEO of both Miclyn Express Offshore, and Jaya Holdings Limited as well as a stint as managing director of Greatship Global.
Shesh had been writing articles – including on this site – and short stories for a number of years.
In October 2022, he asked his wife, Radhika, what she would like for Christmas.
“A full length novel,” she replied, “with a plot that I haven’t come across before.”
Shesh got to work. As a regular runner, one of his stranger pastimes while pounding his way across Singapore is to look for cameras, and the absence of them.
“Don’t ask why,” he tells Maritime CEO. “As I did, I realised that while some areas were well covered, some were bereft. Such areas were conducive for crime, I thought while panting.”
One evening, Shesh met up with a few friends for drinks.
“Most of us were retired or were on the verge of retirement,” Shesh recounts. “What are we supposed to do for the next 20 years?” asked one. Ideas and suggested flowed fast and furious. One slightly more inebriated friend said, “We should form a vigilante group, and go after corrupt politicians.” Another agreed. “We have the knowledge, networks and money to do so,” he said.
These and other pieces gradually slotted together, and Shesh decided that he would try his hand at a full length novel about a retired CEO, who seeks relevance and meaning, and decides to use his hard-won skills to take the concept of killer instinct to a very different level. While Sixty is the New Assassin officially goes on sale on Monday, Shesh has been busy – there are already another seven books done in the series tracking the evolution of the protagonist from a law-abiding, house-broken CEO to a lethal assassin who begins to rationalise every killing as an extension of his purpose.
Quizzed as to how much of him is in the lead character, Shesh concedes there is quite a bit, minus the homicidal impulses.
“The protagonist, Ishmael Dollah, is compulsive, anal, and goal-focused. He plans and prepares for every contingency. He decides what he has to do and then justifies why he is doing it,” he says.
To order Sixty is the New Assassin, click here.
