Shadaab Khan makes you stop in your tracks. He is a spitting image of his father, the late actor Amjad Khan. He smiles just like him, too. But, on the other hand, the actor doesn't much resemble the slim young man with drop-dead looks who danced like a pro with Rani Mukerji in their debut film.

But then, 18 years is a long time in an actor's life. He has found a new calling, too. After a few forgettable films, he is emerging as a crime writer.

After Shanti Memorial, a dark tale about a serial killer, he is ready with his new book Murder in Bollywood, a fictional tale about a sensational murder in the Hindi cinema world. He wrote the first book 15 years ago, but it was published by Frog Books in 2013. The second is to be published by Penguin-Blue Salt imprint in June.

Seated in his well appointed home in Bandra in Amjad Khan Lane, wearing a tomato-red snug jacket and a matching red cap, he talks about the inspiration for his new book.

"Many years ago, an aspiring actress in the US was hacked into half. Two detectives from Los Angeles tried their best to unravel the case by speaking to a lot of people in Hollywood but they could not make much headway," he says about the murder that the media called the Black Dahlia case.

Khan, who knows Bollywood in and out, thought it would be a good idea to weave a story around a high-profile murder in the Hindi film industry, with a detective solving it by making his way through the top echelons of filmdom. "There is a lot of suspense and mystery," he says.

Even as a child, Khan was interested in crime fiction. He studied at the Maneckji Cooper School in Juhu, and recalls as an eight-year-old boy devouring Edgar Allan Poe while his classmates read Enid Blyton.

Khan was not studious, but his school noticed his writing skills. "My teachers were excellent and my principal gave me the opportunity to look past my flaws," he recalls. Long after he'd left school, a teacher referred to him as an example of about how a student who did not fare well in science or mathematics but who had a flair for writing.

Interestingly, his father had a way with words too. "He was all set to join the Indian Express as a journalist when Sholay happened. Dad was a theatre writer and an MA in English literature and also topped the university in Farsi/Persian. Danny Denzongpa was to play the villain but he was shooting in Afghanistan for Dharmatma. So Salimsaab recommended my dad's name." And Amjad Khan took on the role of Gabbar Singh, the dreaded dacoit of Sholay.

Khan, 41, was three when Sholay was released. He recalls that he often found himself fielding questions from people who wanted to know if his father was a "Gabbar Singh" at home. "Not everybody had the temerity to ask the question directly to me. But some of them wondered about it. We took it in our stride," he says.

Sholay has been so intrinsically linked to their lives that Khan hardly watches it anymore. He was invited to the screening of 3D Sholay over a year ago, but walked out halfway through it. He and his family - wife, brother and his family, sister, mother and grandmother - are all horror movie addicts.

But Khan, who was 18 when his father died, knows every little detail about Sholay. He narrates how director Ramesh Sippy's project - "a large-scale" dacoit film - hardly found any takers to begin with.

"Those days dacoit films were shot at Chandivali studios and China Creek near Mumbai but Ramesh Sippy went all the way to Bangalore. People thought the young villain in the film would not be able to deliver, and was not big enough to be pitted against three stars - Dharam ji, Amitji and Sanjeev Kumar saab. They said that Team Sholay was going to fall flat on its face."

It didn't - after a lukewarm start, it went on to become the biggest hit of the time and a top grosser.

"In the first few weeks they didn't even know if the film worked because trade magazines kept saying "film pit gayi" (the film is a flop)," he says.

But one day soon after the release, Amjad Khan and family went for a stroll to Juhu Beach.

"A few hundred people recognised my father and began following him. Then word got around that Gabbar Singh was strolling in Juhu Beach with his family and soon thousands of people were trailing him. The police had to come and whisk him away. That is when Dad knew the film had worked and was going to be a hit."

Unlike his father, who became a colossal star, Khan failed to make a mark in Bollywood. Rani Mukerji rose to great heights after Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat in 1997, but Khan got only small roles. He featured in the 2000 films, Refugee and Hey Ram. He directed a film, which also sank, and wrote the screenplays for Lakeer and Sandhya.

Ironically, he was offered a role in Mardaani, a 2014 film starring Mukerji. He turned it down, and also said no to a role in Sriram Raghavan's Badlapur. "It is my loss entirely. It's a wonderful script. But I was busy working on my book."

He is not hanging up his boots in Bollywood, though. He is encouraged by the industry's new avatar which he stresses is streamlined and professional. "I have worked in films where they gave me my lines 15 minutes before shooting. But one man who impressed me was Kamal Haasan, who gave me the script for Hey Ram well in advance."

When he was writing scripts, he adds, "it was a bad time" for scriptwriters. "The director told you to make changes, as did the producer and even the actor. But now I am told content is king."

So watch out for Shadaab Khan, the author, who might emerge as a screenplay writer. Or you may see him as an actor again if he gets the "right" role. "I want to strike a balance between writing and acting. I don't want to stop writing for acting."

In that case, watch out for more thrillers from Shadaab Khan, the actor.