Cut Like Wound - [Book Review]

Book details:

Title: Cut like Wound

Author: Anita Nair

Hardcover: 358 pages

Publisher: Harper Collins

Source: A free copy from Book lovers book review program

This is my first novel of Anita Nair’s. I love reading Indian authors, but never got a chance to read a gripping thriller from them. This is the first psycho thriller that I read from an Indian author and I loved it.

Plot is about the investigation of similar serial crimes in Bangalore by an experienced inspector Gowda. Though Gowda is not young and dynamic, he is the hero of our story with his small imperfections.

Story starts with a burnt body of young male prostitute in Ramzan month and series of murders of random men on every Friday with peculiar ligature strangulation on neck. Author introduces us to corporator Ravi’s life in parallel. What is the relation between murders and Corporator? How Gowda finds the pattern in the killings? Remaining story is about the clues and findings of Gowda. Gowda’s problems in his family life, affair with his ex-girlfriend etc., also form a part of the story. Climax is good and unexpected.

What I liked?

Story seems to be intriguing till the end. It is a medium paced psycho thriller. It met my expectation for sure. Characterization and writing style are impressive. Climax is good, Reader will be sure of the murderer from the middle of the story, but suddenly realizes that it is not that person.

What I didn't like..

Motive of the crime doesn't look very convincing. Sometimes, We feel , story is dragging and going no where, but, from the middle of the novel it picks the proper pace.

My overall rating: 4/5

So, pick the book and read if you can! Happy reading :) 
Here is the discounted price from flipkart.com.

Until next time,

Inspector Singh investigates A curious Indian Cadaver - [Book Review]

Book Details:

Title : Inspector Singh investigates: A curious Indian Cadaver 

Author: Shamini Flint

Publishers: Hachette India, Piaktus
Source: Book lovers book review program

Price: Rs.350

Reading the title you may think that it might be an interesting detective story in India. But, this book is not as curious as the title. For the first few pages, we feel boring and the last half of the book will be fast paced contrary to the first half.  If we have already read famous detective stories like Sherlock holme’s or Agatha Christie’s etc., we may not like this plain detective story much. But if we don’t go with any comparison, second half of the book is somewhat gripping and narration is interesting.  

Plot:

An young scientist ‘Ashu Kaur’ disappears from house suddenly before few days of her marriage. Inspector Singh who is visiting India to attend her marriage agrees to solve the mystery. A dead body is found which is confirmed as Ashu’s by her brother and Mr. Singh investigates the murder case. Mr. Singh finds that the factory in which Ashu is working is responsible for a serious disease in slums and since Ashu knew about that dangerous chemical, she informed her boss on the same day she disappeared. He also finds that Ashu has a lover who is a colleague in her factory ‘Sameer’ who is a muslim, but still Ashu is ready to marry an MBA boy selected by the family as their family cannot accept her to marry a Muslim. Now, what might be the reason for Ashu’s disappearance? Did she she elope with Sameer? OR someone murdered her to suppress the truth that she knows about the factory? OR she suicides to avoid marriage with the boy selected by family?

Writing style:

Shamini’s writing style is simple, but sometimes it gets boring. As she was a lawyer by profession, the investigation discussions seem to be very well written with her experience. Pace of the story becomes very fast at the end with story unfolding layer by layer.

My Rating:

A journey pass time read. I can give 2/5.

Until next time,

The Monk, the moor and Moses Ben Jalloun - [Book Review]

Book details:
Title: The Monk, the Moor and Moses Ben Jalloun
Author: Saeed Akhtar Mirza

Publisher: Fourth Estate, Harper Collins India
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 247

Reason to pick this book:

I studied to some extent about Hindu religion and Christianity, but didn't get the opportunity to learn about Islam religion. In 'The story of my experiments with truth' by Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi mentions that we need to read books and epics on different religions to understand different religions to be able to comment on any religion.   I too feel the same. We should form an opinion on any religion only when we have done a thorough research on it. 

I got this book as part of book lovers book review program. This book is about the glory of Islamic civilization, how it flourished and how ideas on different fields like astronomy, biology, geography etc., passed on to western countries from Arabs. 

The plot/ story line:

There are 2 stories running in parallel in this book. One is from present period where a group of students studying in an American university find an old manuscript about the translations made from Arabic to latin by a christian, a moor and Ben Jalloun. They research on the topics mentioned in manuscripts, try to understand and discuss on great moors or scholars who contributed to different fields like philosophy, astronomy, politics, poetry etc., when Latin America is still in nascent stages of development. They call their meetings as ‘House of wisdom’. Another story from past (AD 1010) is about an Iranian woman ‘Rehana’ , her life, her teacher and scholar ‘Abu Rehan’ and her quest to learn.

Pros:

Storyline of Rehana, research of Abu Rehan, characterization of Rehana and her husband Dilwar khan is nice to read. But, I cannot believe that an Iranian woman was given that much independence at home to learn from her teacher and decide on her own marriage in those old days like AD1010.

Cons:

Novel seems to be in bits and pieces. It is very difficult to correlate the facts and understand. It seems like we are dumped with hell lot of information or facts which doesn’t seem to be true sometimes.

Book is not interesting going forward, as all chapters are alike and story narration is not very impressive.

My rating:

A serious read and i rate it 3/5. 

Here is link from flipkart.com to purchase this book.

Until next time,

Urban shots - Cross roads [Book Review]

Book details:

Name: Cross roads

Editor: Ahmed Faiyaz

Publishers: Grey Oak in association with West Land

Price: Rs. 199

What this book is about?

A collection of Indian short stories (30 urban stories by 26 authors) edited by best-selling author Ahmed Faiyaz.

It is very difficult to write review for a short story collection, because you cannot judge if book is good or not. If one story is excellent and another story is not good, you cannot give an overall rating. So, in this post I recommend some good stories in the book leaving behind the not so good ones.

What I liked?

My favorite is Rajasthan summer by Ayesha Heble -  It is a simple ghost story with a twist at the end.

Everyone has a story by Gayathri Hingorani – Minu bai, a maid walks through us to different homes, different lives, different problems and different stories from where she works. Rich or poor or liberated or neutral or joint family everyone has their own share of problems.

Cross Roads by Ahmed Faiyaz – Excellent story narration and un-predictable climax. This is my next favorite pick form the book.

Plummet by Avnee Rajesh & Pranav Mukul – A close up on a student’s life, his perspective on everyone around him. Story is very realistic as we see many parents in India who compare academics of their children to their neighborhood kids without realizing the potential of their children in other fields like sports, arts etc., This also shows how much pressure is put on those children which sadly leads to suicidal tendency.

Baba Premanand’s Yoga class by paritosh Uttam – One of a kind humorous story and we can expect such an excellent story from Paritosh obviously. Story shows how circumstances play with us some times and make things out of control.

Look how far we’ve come by Shreya Maheshwari – An emotional story of a divorced couple with a child. It shows how couple copes up with things and also shares a good bond with child. Dad meets his son every weekend and spends time with him, while his son is taken care by mother Rhea. Kid is happy that he can share their love without listening to their parents shouting at each other daily. But, last 2 lines from dad say a lot

It felt odd, realizing that it wasn’t so much that my eleven-year-old son needed me, but that I needed him.

Mind games by Manisha Dhingra – It’s a complex story of a person with some mental illness because of which he is in a hallucination that he married his college love even after breakup. We just feel pity of the character.

Wrong strokes for Deepalaya – A motivational story dedicated to many soldiers who lose their lives to protect us and our country from invaders.

Jump Didi by Sharath Komarraju – It’s about a mysterious baby sitter with her own dark secrets. It highlights the issue of child sexual abuse.

Pasta lane by Siddhartha Bhaskar and The Gap by saritha rao are also worth a mention.

There are also some stories which are not good at all and I felt boring to read. But, overall collection is good. When compared to other short story collection ‘Urban shots – bright lights’ this collection is not that great. My earlier review on Urban shots - brights lights can be found here.

Final say:

A time pass read best for a train journey. Pick up the book from flipkart.com if you need some discount.

Until next time,

This post is written as part of book lovers book review program. http://thebookloversreview.blogspot.in/