Book Review : The Murder In The Rain

Blurb:

When 27-year-old Kush Singh’s domestic help Leena is accused of murdering her husband, the ill-tempered inspector wants to see her imprisoned. Struggling to cope with a fall-out with his wife, a distracted Inspector Singh aka KP turns a deaf ear to Leena’s pleas. A corpse in a gunny sack, a besotted lover, a bankrupt businessman, and a group of agitated employees add to the complications of this mysterious case. Will Singh be able to investigate objectively and get justice for the victim? Set in Mumbai, The Murder in the Rain is a fast-paced thriller introducing the erratic Inspector KP Singh.

Review:

A grumpy but super intelligent police inspector, a corpse within a gunny sack in a pond, a twisted plot, illegitimate liaisons, high flying ambitions and a thriller set in Mumbai. How else to begin the festive season, if I may ask?

Moitrayee Bhaduri is an accomplished writer of the ‘Mili Ray’ series of detective books. I’ve read one of them, ‘Who Killed The Murderer?’ and had liked it much. This prompted me to pick up ‘The Murder In The Rain,’ first of a ten parts ebook series by Moitrayee, involving a new protagonist – Inspector K P Singh. I must mention that I loved Mili Ray as a detective because she was such a layered and mysterious character, nonetheless, the rare female detective in Indian fiction. While I was hoping to read more of Mili Ray books, here comes the new one, Inspector K P Singh. Why not read this series of ten mini thrillers and find out what K P Singh is all about, while I wait for more of Mili Ray stories.

Continue reading →

Book Review : Who Killed The Murderer?

Blurb:

When TV actress Shagun Seth mysteriously dies in a beauty parlour in Mumbai, her mother slams murder charges on Shagun’s banker husband Chetan Seth. Chetan’s family suspects that he is being framed and requests private detective Mili Ray to investigate. As Mili and her lawyer-associate Gatha start work, Chetan is released on bail. Soon after, Shagun’s mother is killed! Is Chetan responsible for these murders? Mili probes deeper and unravels shocking secrets buried beneath Shagun’s world of glitz that leave her baffled. An insecure boyfriend, an estranged husband, an opportunist colleague, a cunning TV producer – Shagun was surrounded by Haters. Even her twelve-year-old son didn’t want to see her alive. Why did everyone hate Shagun? While meandering through dysfunctional family upheavals and dark showbiz sagas, ex-super cop Mili Ray also struggles to tame her own internal demons. Will she be able to solve her second case as private detective or succumb to pressure and hang up her boots? “Who killed the murderer?” is a gripping psychological thriller that will hook you right from the first page.

Review:

Generally, murder mysteries are about one-two-three killings around the idea of whodunnit or whydunnit. In this story though, there’s a super clue in the title of the book and there are numerous murders. The protagonist, Shagun Mehra is murdered and later her mother and TV producer friend are killed too. Is there a serial killer on the loose? Or did Shagun’s husband Chetan Seth kill her and shut all evidences as suspected?

Who doesn’t love a well-plotted, juicy murder mystery that entails complex brainstorming and Moitrayee Bhaduri doesn’t disappoint. The story germinates in Shagun’s childhood, how a school trauma affects her entire life ahead and changes her as a person. Revealing more would be doling out spoilers, so I’ll refrain from that. But, as a reader, you should read the early chapters carefully for clues later. Shagun grows up to be an obnoxious person whom most people hate, including her son. It’s an extraordinary characterisation of a beautiful, successful woman living in an empty shell otherwise. Readers can guess why and how Shagun behaves, but the characters obviously don’t. And yet, positioned at this advantageous state, you can’t predict who murdered Shagun.

Continue reading →

Book Review : Secretly Yours

Blurb View:

Everyone has secrets . . . but is hers the most shocking? Orphaned at birth, seventeen-year-old Sahil has always blamed himself for his parents’ death. He has little interest in life until he meets the enigmatic Anya in a chance encounter during the Shimla fest. Soon he falls head over heels in love with her, but Anya doesn’t reciprocate his feelings.
An accident leaves him in a coma and when he wakes up he makes a startling discovery-he can read minds! Now he can find out what goes on in Anya’s mind and maybe, just maybe, make her fall in love with him. But is Anya all she seems? Or is she hiding something?
Deliciously plotted, full of morbid secrets and startling revelations, Secretly Yours will make you question what you see and who you trust.

Review:

Secretly Yours is a romantic thriller with other elements as well. The first attraction of the book is surely the cover. Wonderfully designed, it is sure to catch the eye and that’s one of the reasons I picked this one. The blurb promises a love story and the book starts off on such a note. We meet Sahil, a teenager plagued with more problems in life than teenagers should ideally have. He’s an orphan and is blamed by his grandmother for his parents’ death. You bet that’s way too much to be handled by a young boy. He takes refute in alcohol and bruising himself. His passion for music, however, keeps him alive. And then he meets a pair of eyes that entice him as well as baffle him. As luck would have it, Anya enters his life and everything turns topsy-turvy.

What happens next? Sahil meets an accident, loses his grandmother and gains Anya. Or does he? Anya has a bagful of secrets that get uncovered over the second half of the book. I can’t give away her secrets as spoilers and hence, you have pick up the book.

Continue reading →

Book Review : Finders, Keepers

Image Courtesy: Amazon

Blurb View:

Finders, Keepers. Losers, Weepers Two men are murdered in settings which speak volumes of involvement of some sacred cynicism. A psycho-killer on the loose? Or is this the beginning of something much more grave and dangerous? This is the tale of how Deputy Director, I.B., Shoumik Haldar and celebrated author Ishan Vajpayee exercise all their tools of conventional and unconventional deduction to solve the puzzles thrown across by the enemy, yet unrevealed. Intertwined intensely with the opulent mythological tales and specimens attributing to the rich cultural heritage of this country, the story depicts the resurgence of a dormant historical sect, which attacks the very foundations of one of the most powerful and secreted organizations of all times. Spread across the length and breadth of the entire Indian subcontinent, read the mystery as it unravels with the duo travelling from one corner of the country to another searching for the signs.

Review:

Before you attempt to read this book, I must advise that you gather enough patience in your kitty. Finders, Keepers is a huge novel, almost an epic with a heavy dose of Indian Mythology. I haven’t read a longer one by any Indian Writer in English yet. And in my opinion, you should read the entire novel only if you have the time to. The story and plot is sprawled all over India with references to Mythology that’s millions of years old. It would be a shame if someone doesn’t read the entire turn of events.

The basic premise of the book dates back to King Ashoka and his devise of creating a clique of Nine Unknown Men with all the knowledge in the world. They gather their respective departmental gems into a book each that will be protected by guardians for centuries. The book begins with two murders and enter IB officer Shoumik Haldar to investigate them by special request from an eminent personality. Anticipating a connect of Mythology in the murders, Shoumik decides to confide and take assistance in a very able author, Ishan Vajpayee. A few murders follow and they unravel the immensely complicated mystery that has been protecting and progressing our country since long. Do the Nine Unknown Men still exist? What knowledge do they guard in each book? Why are they murdered one at a time? Who is behind all the murders and what is their motive? These and many more questions spring up in the first two chapters itself. With a whopping total of 624 pages, the book traverses at a gradual speed to solve the case with the help of two efficient men.

Continue reading →

Book Review : Lead Tin Yellow

Blurb View:

Image Courtesy: Amazon

Robin was stunned! Why should his father chuck a bag of old newspapers over a bridge moments before he was shot? He was just a retired small-town engineer, so what secret was he hiding? He had lived all his life in a small Midwestern town and led a dull, gray-flannel life. The police were curious too. There was a ghastly murder on their hands. When Robin found a key with a tag in his raincoat he knew his father had deliberately secreted it for him. Now he had a clue, but where would this take him? There was something his father wanted him to know, and he had to get there before the police. It was now between him, his father, and his killers. The secret lay in Robin’s discovery of how lead and tin were combined by sixteenth-century artists to make a brilliant yellow. In his pursuit of his father’s killers, Robin puts his journalistic career on hold to enter a world of corporate thugs, unrequited love, and medieval art. He pursued his quarry, just as his quarry pursued him, from the East Coast to the Midwest to Quebec and back. His partner, a high-end fashion designer, and his quarrelsome but astute half-brother step up to fill in the blanks that help Robin get closer to his target. Events build up to a dramatic climax at which point Robin and the police have identical interests. The showdown is on the same bridge on which Robin’s father was shot. In his lifetime, Robin hardly knew his reticent father. But after his death, as he unpeeled his father’s life, he got to know of the courage and affection this man was capable of. A grave tragedy helps a near-dysfunctional family to rekindle an absent affection that should have always been there.

Review:

The book mentions an interesting factoid in the inside back cover – that the author is a renowned sociologist. Few pages into the story, and I have a glaring suspicion that his intentions in writing this book might be a sociological experiment. The premises seem to be exciting, there’s an anticipation of a taut thriller, a glaring mystery that compels anyone to pick up the book.

The story is about a journalist, Robin Miller, who is grappled with a sudden situation of his father’s death. As the blurb tells you, Robin unravels a mystery that leads him to his father’s secrets through a big maze of events. There are guns, paintings, a little war history, dysfunctional families, love affairs. It’s a mishmash of stuff the author wanted to fit into his story. The story is credible at times, but at other times, it would seem a bit loose. There’s a definite plot and thankfully not-too-many subplots to make things more complicated.

Continue reading →

Book Review : God is a Gamer

Image Courtesy: Google

Blurb View:

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CROSS GAMER, BANKER, POLITICIAN AND TERRORIST WITH VIRTUAL MONEY?

From the bestselling author of If God Was a Banker comes the first ever bitcion thriller. God is a Gamer is a world where money means nothing, martyrs are villains, predators are prey, assassination is taught by the ancient Greeks, and nothing is as it seems.

Moving from Washington’s Congress to Delhi’s finance ministry, the beaches of Goa to the corporate boardrooms of Mumbai, this is Ravi Subramanian’s most gripping novel yet.

Review:

Ravi Subramanian had already raised all expectations with his banking series. Though I haven’t read any of his previous books, ‘Bankster’ is on my To-Read pile since long. ‘God is a Gamer’ being India’s first ever bitcoin thriller, had garnered hopes and thrills from readers in belonging to a niche genre. Banks, currencies, virtual banking, gaming and eventually the introduction of bitcoins should have been more interesting than it turned out to be.

The book began well, I must say. It hooked my interest into the world of bitcoins and virtual money transfer, interspersed with a murder and lot of suspense. Swami, Aditya, Malvika and Sundeep had all started as bankers and diversified into different fields after awhile. Aditya owns a gaming company that Sundeep has helped him build up. The tussle between Malvika and Swami in their banking operations has been pulled off well, though it turned out to be a sub-plot. Then enter Varun and Tanya, the two key protagonists of the story. We see whirlwind romance between them and it is structured pretty well to fit into the story.

Continue reading →

Book Review : Private India

Image Courtesy: Flipkart

Blurb View:

When a series of seemingly unconnected murders rock the city of Mumbai with the macabre rituals and artefacts found around the corpses, Private India, a leading investigation agency takes the case. Santosh Wagh, the head of the organization, has only one mission. He needs to stop the killers before they strike again. However, in a city of over 13 million people, he finds that the clock is ticking too fast. He finds himself pitted against underworld dons and a Godman who isn’t what he seems. However, the worst is yet to come and Private India itself may be threatened with a revelation that could destroy the entire organization.

Review:

Not having read a single James Patterson book might have been an advantage when I began reading ‘Private India’. There were a few preconceived notions though, having read Ashwin Sanghi before. I had braced myself for a generous helping of mythology with a dollop of thrill and race to find the culprit. The ingredients were still present, but in different proportions.

The book begins with a lot of promise. Two murders in as many chapters give an inkling to the readers that there is a serial killer on the loose. A veteran detective heads the leading investigating agency in Mumbai, which has its counterparts all over the world. His team seems invincible but they aren’t able to find any clue about the killer. Meanwhile, the series of murders continues. Detectives and forensic experts keep working overtime to solve the case, but the clues are hard to find. I think here enters Ashwin Sanghi with his background knowledge and research in Indian history and mythology. The clues are arranged in order of a small portion of Hindu mythology, which in my opinion, could be elaborated for the betterment of young readers.

Continue reading →

Its Time for Breakfast

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda. We give out creative writing topics each weekend for Indian bloggers.

——————–

Sheer looked around lazily through the glass and sat down, visibly bored. He had always loved this capsule elevator with a seat for the elderly.

He peeked onto the airport lawn outside, the palm trees were swaying their heads in the soothing dawn breeze. It was going to be a glorious sunny morning. Yet, he had work.

He dressed as a waiter and knocked the door of a plush suite.

‘Sir, your breakfast.’

The victim opened the door after a minute. Sheer made tea for him. Then he unlocked the ice box, took out his precious weapon and stabbed the man.

One thing he didn’t know that they were being watched.

A lady escort came out horrified of the walk-in closet after he left.

Sheer went to the changing room, dressed as himself and disposed the silicon mask he was wearing.

On his way down, the morning seemed to be even more glorious from the capsule.

———————–

Book Review : A Degree in Death

Image Courtesy: Google

Blurb View:

The midnight murder of a student in the sleepy town of Dehradun rouses everyone with suspicion and alarm. Violence is incomprehensible in this institute located at the foothills of the Himalayas. With no clues or suspects, the police are unable to catch the killer.

Professor Shantanu Bose, an eminent nano-expert and Dean of Research and Development, is deeply troubled at this havoc caused to his institute. Determined to bring back the peaceful academic environment of the campus, he begins his own investigation.
Fear mounts as more bodies are discovered one after the other. Soon the professor finds himself in grave danger. as he realizes he is being stalked and his every move is being observed. Yet. he persists with his inquiry and discovers that the truth is more startling than what anyone could have imagined.

Review:

Murder mysteries are something I adore. I kind of dream about them even when I’m reading other stories. It is as if I want a murder to happen in almost every book. Alas, all the authors don’t oblige me. Ruby Gupta did, though. She has killed more than one person in her book and I’m fairly happy with that. She has recreated a traditional murder mystery, one where you bump into dead bodies, suspects and nail-biting situations. Well, not exactly the last trait in this book, you have the other ones.

The stage is set in Dehradun, which I have heard is as picturesque as it could be. Imagine a science and technology institute set amidst serene hills and misty valleys. The author has managed to weave a good plot which will keep you busy till the end. As the blurb suggests, the book begins with the midnight murder of a student. What follows is havoc and chaos among the other students and faculty as well. An interested and inquisitive professor starts his investigation alongside the police and the author follows his trail diligently.

Continue reading →