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review, Thriller |
I like jumping into the books without reading much about them. I try not to read the blurb before I pick a book up if I can help it. I did read the plot summary on its blurb before I received this book for a review, a while ago but had completely forgotten what I had read. So I dove directly into the book without an idea what to expect. How did that end up for me? Read more to know.Book Name: Here and Gone
Author: Haylen Beck
Characters: Audrey, Danny, Sean, Louise, Sheriff Whiteside, Deputy Sheriff Collins
Setting: The USA
Disclaimer: Thanks to the Author, Netgalley and Blogging for Books for the free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Audrey is running away from her terrible past with her children. She is not hiding from the law technically but was she? When she is stopped by the cops on her way to San Deigo, does not realize her life was going to turn for worse. She knows the cops took her children while she was arrested on a fake charge of possession of Marijuana, but who is going to believe her? It is her words against the County Sheriff’s, and her ex-husband’s attempts to discredit her does not help her case. A former addict, single mother with no one turn to, one who is running away from Child Protection Services. It doesn’t take long for the media to turn her into the villain – child murderer. Does she get her kids back? Who could help her out?
I have a solid woman crush on Mrs. Gerber. I could picture her smoking from the top of her stairs looking down at her husband’s body like a badass, just moments after pushing him down to his death. I wish I could have felt this close to Danny or Audrey, but I am not complaining. Dark web and their conversations were flimsy and disappointing. Thankfully their parts were kept brief, lest it might have been bizarre and too clichéd.
Rarely thrillers sustain the pace they begin with. Here and gone does a great job at maintaining it till the very end, even after we got to know what had happened to the kids. Even if at times when we get the gnawing feeling that it is one of those stories that has been retold countless times, we stick glued to the book, and that is the power of crisp and straight forward narration. There are no unnecessary twists and turns that could have made false promises to the reader.Here and Gone does justice to the plot and genre. I can recommend this book if you are looking for a fast paced thriller that might keep you occupied for an hour or two.
![Book review: Here and gone]()
Thriller |
What do you do when you are on a fully paid vacation at the Caribbeans, especially if you are escaping the long, dreary, cold England weather? Swim a bit, enjoy the sun, meet the locales? Nah, if you are Miss Marple in A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie.
About A Caribbean Mystery
Book Name: A Caribbean Mystery
Series: Miss Marple #10
Author: Agatha Christie
Genre: Fiction Thriller
Characters: Miss Jane Marple, Major Palgrove, Mr Rafiel, Colonel Edward and Mrs Evelyn Hillingdon, Gregory and Mrs Lucky Dyson
Setting: Caribbeans
Plot Summary of A Caribbean Mystery
She is the elderly sleuth the local busybody of St Meads, England who is sent on a Caribbean vacation by her well meaning nephew. She is surrounded by interesting group of people consisting of old tycoons, bird watchers, secretaries and even masseurs. But all could not be that swell, can they? It so seemed, until the old Major Palgrove dies out of an innocent heart attack.
Miss Marple finds his sudden death very suspicious because just the day before he died the Major was telling her about a murderer in their presence. But of course, why would anyone believe a sweet, old lady’s imaginations? Things turn more ghastly when the body counts keep increasing and every one of the guests had something to hide from the other. Read more to find how Miss Marple solves the mystery, in her own style in A Caribbean Mystery.
Book review of A Caribbean Mystery
Very far from the bests of Agatha Christie, A Caribbean Mystery has a pleasant change of the ambiance from the cold England and the usual local bodies that Miss Marple talks about. Though it is a quick read and I normally like Christie’s book, this one was too plain to my liking. I had to stop at different places, despite the colorful characters. I did not even bother to try to guess the murderer.
As usual I loved the repartee of Miss Marple with one of the characters, here Mr Rafiel, an old business tycoon, who is simply rude and too blunt for anyone. Quite a contrast to our Miss Marple, who is genteel and soft spoken. Well, that is the only part of the story that kept me going, and unfortunately it was not long enough.
Bottom-line
Worth a quick read, if you like Miss Marple series and Agatha Christie.
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Thriller |
One cannot go wrong with an Agatha Christie, can they? 4:50 from Paddington is another good one for me on the long road
Of all the projects that I have started and left midway, reading the entire Agatha Christie collection was the one that I almost came close to completing.
Maybe I was near completing it only because I had started it during my school days and our library suddenly had replenished their book stock with lots of Christie’s. I have decided to re-read as many books of hers as possible this year and try and revive the reviewing habit. Of course, I would be continuing to read and review other books as well. So let us take our plunge, right away.
About 4:50 from Paddington
Book Name: 4:50 from Paddington
Author: Agatha Christie
Genre: Fiction Thriller
Characters: Miss Jane Marple, Lucy Eyelesbarrow, Mrs Elspeth McGillicuddy, Luther Crackenthorpe, Emma, Alfred, Cedric and Harold Crackenthorpe
Plot Summary of 4:50 from Paddington
What would you do if you witness a murder that no one seems to believe about? Give up? Mrs Elspeth McGillicuddy doesn’t. On her return journey after her Christmas purchase by train the 4:50 from Paddington, she witnesses a man strangling a woman on the train that passes hers.
She reaches to the concerned authorities but realizes that no one is taking her word seriously. Lucky for her, she stays with her friend Miss Jane Marple, an old busybody who not just knows the right people to talk to, but also believes earnestly in her friend that she decides to solve the case on her own.
Miss Marple is ‘just the finest detective God ever made ‐ natural genius cultivated in a suitable soil’. She is handicapped by fragility due to her age, but she helps to solve cases for the Scotland Yard. So she doesn’t waste much of her time when she understands that her friend Mrs McGillicuddy was speaking the truth. But unfortunately for them, no body of a blonde woman turns up in the following days. When Mrs McGillicuddy leaves after her stay, Miss Marple takes it upon herself as a duty to find the body and the murderer.
Using the never-ending list of people who would love to help an old lady, she studies the route of the trains that pass through that particular station at the given time, and quickly zeroes in Rutherford Hall as the place where they could find the body. She sends in an efficient and thorough house help Miss Lucy Eyelesbarrow to Rutherford to discover the body. Unfortunately for them, they find out not just a body but a series of murder that may or not be connected to the first one related to the 4:50 from Paddington.
Book review of 4:50 from Paddington
Things are never as they seem, particularly when there is a broken family with a large sum of money to be inherited when the father kicks off and every one of them has a lot to lose if that didn’t happen anytime sooner, concerned. The Crackenthorpe family consists of the old man Luther Crackenthorpe, his daughter Emma who stays in to take care of her apparently invalid father and their three sons Alfred, Cedric and Harold. Though the latter do not live at Rutherford, they do visit their father often.
Harold, a businessman and a prominent figure in the city, Alfred, the black sheep of the family and the one who is into shady deals and Cedric, the rebellious painter who lives in Ibiza, look like the man Mrs McGillicuddy saw from her train. Their widower son in law Bryan Eastley and his son Alexander would also benefit from the family inheritance. There are too many suspects and motives and far too fewer clues to continue, or so the police think but not long before Miss Marple solves the crimes, thanks to Mrs McGillicuddy’s return to the story once again.
The ending is entirely unexpected, as with most of the Agatha Christie’s. Miss Marple appears too little in the story, to my liking. In fact, she arrives only to stitch the bits and pieces of everyone’s part into a meaningful whodunnit. Lucy plays her stand-in for the most part of the story and does more than what is expected of her. There are funny parts that worked only for her like the one where all the Crackenthorpes men were trying to make some proposition to her.
Young ones have fun there, you know amidst murders and all. In fact the elders considered it even healthy for the kids to go look for clues about the murderer, and it goes as far as one of the elders is ready to prepare a fake clue just to keep them occupied. Maybe it was just the period they lived in, but the presence of these kids did liven up the book by a bit.
Bottom-line
Though 4:50 from Paddington is definitely not my favorite Agatha Christie, it was a pleasure re-reading just for the childhood memories. The story ran too long and too slow in parts. The ending was unexpected, but it failed to make the reader wonder how he had missed the glaring clue at the end after it was solved.
I love whodunnits that make me feel that surprised that ‘oh the murderer was just among them, all along. How did I miss that?’ Well, 4:50 from Paddington did not do that. Oops, I have said enough, no more spoilers.
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review, Thriller |
While the entire blogger fraternity is going crazy with their resolutions to read more and blog more, it has been almost a month since I have read anything, much longer since I reviewed.
Though it is unlike me to not pick a book for such a long time, especially when I have quite a backlog with the review copies, it has been somehow difficult to do just that. One can easily blame it to the fact that I have moved country just now, but the truth is I was on a reading slump. Or still I am. How does one simply get out of a reading slump?
Search inspiration from other readers? Check.
Sweet talk yourself into getting more books? Check.
Take a break? Check and (WARNING) that doesn’t work at all.
Well, an almost threatening message from the author / friend might just as well work, at least in my case it did.
About the book
Book Name: India Shining, the Novel
Author: Alcatraz Dey
Genre: Fiction Thriller
Settings: India
Disclaimer: Thanks to the author for the free copy of the book. I also had the opportunity to beta read this fast paced thriller.
The Plot
The story starts with the suicidal note of Shantanu, a lovesick 31 year old and his nostalgic thoughts about the winter morning when he fell in love with Nishi about 17 years ago, who has a frightening profession being a mercenary, who works for an organization against corruption called FUCK (you heard it right!).
Meanwhile Nishi is stuck at the prison for 10 years for a murder she didn’t commit and loathing Shantanu for he was the reason for all her troubles latest of which is being taken out on parole (I assume) for seeing her dying husband. They unravel that Nishi’s father was a scientist on a top secret a mission before he disappeared and the key to it laid somewhere amidst Nishi, her trident tattoo and her very few memories related to her dad.
Throw in to the pile are attempts to save Delhi, a scientist admitted in an mental asylum, depletion of ozone layer and of course corrupt bureaucrats at many levels and you get a blockbuster novel in your hand.
My thoughts
The pace of the story and writing is racy enough to hold the attention of the reader, despite the length of the novel and complex twists in the story. The plot never sags at any point and keeps the grip on the reader until the very last moment. The beginning of the novel intrigued, especially the Kolkatta stadium débâcle and Shantanu trying to kill himself too soon into the story.
The novel as such is event based and all the characters are as equally treated as the main protagonists. In fact I ended up falling in love with a non protagonist, John. For example, John’s support to different players at different times was much more likeable because his plight and decisions were understandable even though there were not too many explicit dialogues about them. That is what is missing with the protagonists.
The story alternates between several time-lines and causes confusion at many places, especially at the beginning. A mention of the time period at the beginning of the chapters might have helped. There are too many characters and too many story lines that ran parallel but without a time-line it is difficult to be sure if they were indeed running parallel.
There are places where the novel might seem to be single dimensional in terms of character building. There are a few emotions and traits of the characters being repeated too often (she was strong, she was the rock of Gibraltar, Shantanu is staring at Nishi’s eyes) but their other attributes are ignored (relevant ones).
It is quite hard to believe that the guy who kills for a profession could or would kill himself for a girl whose existence he is not sure about. His reason to die is not very strong, for lack of show of his remorse towards his profession or despair on losing his girl or mixture of both. He is portrayed to be a veteran at his job but he behaves like a headless chicken when William is killed.
Despite there being so many characters, and a twist at every chapter end (sometimes, too many for my taste) to lead on the reader, the fact that the whole story stayed put together in one piece speaks loud about the clarity of the theme in the author’s mind.
He knows to keep the suspense till the end, despite a very filmy finish and epilogue, which might work for the target audience. There are very few loopholes in the story, and those maybe only due to the aforementioned time line confusion.
Bottom line
It is not an easy read but surely will reach the targeted YA and movie lovers alike. You must catch it if you are into racy action packed thrillers.
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review, Thriller |
“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.”― Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake
If my last book had taken me to Afghanistan, the war-torn country with rich culture and diversity, Optimal Exposure
took me to Israel and then back to India with a classic detective/whodunnit story. Most of us heard about Kumbh Mela and the related news about its participants who run into millions. What happens when an elderly photographer is found dead amidst the crowd? What and who would help him out, if at all? Sounds intriguing? Then Optimal Exposure by Dan Rogel is the book for you.
Book Name: Optimal Exposure
Author: Dan Rogel
Characters: Boaz and Ephraim Lavie, Superintendent Shemesh, Inspector Hagit Butler
Setting: Israel, India
Disclaimer: Thanks to the B00k R3vi3ws for the free copy of the book.
The story begins with Boaz Lavie completing his seven day mourning period following the death of his father Ephraim, a photographer who was brought dead from India where he had been on a photography trip. The case attracts the attention of Superintendent Shemesh and Inspector Hagit Butler, as they realize this was the second time a fellow photographer was carried home dead by the same group following such an expedition and they start to dig into the cases, inspired by Boaz’s interest. In both cases the local authorities, namely Indians and Brazilians, had given a clean chit to the deaths and cause were as heart attack declared by their doctors.
Boaz was quite close to his father and he cannot fathom the circumstances leading to his death, until he starts digging into his computer and his universe of photography. He understands the financial benefit that people could gain out of these photography contests and that his father had dealt with a few minor rifts with the the contest results, just before he left to the expedition to Kumbmela, India. Who, why and how they murdered the photographers forms the part the rest of the story.
It had been so long that I read about Jews and their customs and this story set in Israel was a welcome change. And added to that the party visits India, my place of birth making it doubly pleasurable to read and understand how things work with authorities here. Kudos to the author for keeping the photographic jargon pretty simple to layman, yet the descriptive language and the writing style was a little hard to get used to. The murders and their modi operandi were interesting, and I could not guess the murderers until the very end. I found the narration part of Hagit very annoying and her desire to please her partner Shemesh seemed too filmy for my taste. The last chapter which was supposed to be the one that solves the ‘whodunnit’ was too long and one could even get away reading it instead of the entire novel.
Looking for a book that takes you across countries on a murder chase? Go grab Optimal Exposure by Dan Rogel.
review, Thriller |
Everyone one of us would have tried playing the sleuth when we were young, thanks to the Enid Blyton and Carolyn Keene books like the Secret Seven and Famous Five and Nancy Drew. Even Scooby Doo and friends helped us to imagine ourselves as the clue finders, that we were not. A few days ago, I unlocked my house to find the living room a mess. Of course, I had to be the detective that I always wanted to be, to deduce and choose between the hot wind or the mouse as the culprit behind the ransack. I carefully analysed the window placement and probable direction of the wind and decided to blame it. I also was joyous that it could not have been the mouse, as there was no other damage found around the house. I do not know if I should feel happy or foolish that I didn’t think of any other possibility for having a mess inside a locked house, like a thievery or a ghost phenomenon.
Nothing better could have made me choose this book for a read than the above incident. Yes, after I solved a classic whodunit I wanted to read about one. So here I spent a little over two hours to read this short story. So how did it fare on the scales of a real life detective (that’s me, ahem ahem).
Book Name: PENUMBRA
Author: Bhaskar Chattopadhyay
Genre: Fiction Thriller
Characters: Prakash Ray, Rajendra Mukherjee,
Disclaimer: Thanks to the publisher for the free copy of the book, in exchange for an honest review.
Prakash Ray is invited to celebrate his uncle Rajendra Mukherjee’s 60th birthday, whom he has never heard of before. He is intrigued by the scenario and not having much to lose; Prakash travels to the secluded villa, located far away from the city limits. He meets a mix of characters who have also been invited by the gregarious and artistic Rajendra. As the night wears out, he gets to know about the guests and learns more about his uncle and his life. All seem fun and frolic until they find a dead body. Cut off from the outer world and stuck in a closed environment with somewhat unknown people, tempers flare and suspicions on each other swell. Each of them tries and play detective to solve the murders and absolve them of the suspicion. So who, when how and why forms the rest of the story.
The writing is straightforward and direct as suited to the genre. The editing was crisp. The plot is relatively tight, though I had a few reservations, and the end connects well without leaving any loopholes. The protagonist Prakash is a simpleton who plays Watson to the characters who want to play Sherlock (mind you there are two), whose naivety seem to be a little too simple for my liking.
The subplot about Prakash and Suhashini is an interesting addition to the story about but makes us understand why Prakash had to take the trip. There are several cliches, and I was able to guess the culprit before the cat was out of the bag, though the reason was not clear until the end. The timeline of the story did not bode with me well, maybe it was just me.
The primary feature for a whodunit to win the hearts of the readers is getting them involved in the plot and when the mystery unravels it should be an ‘I should have seen it‘ moment. Most of us who grew up reading Agatha Christie or Sherlock Holmes (or even watching, in case of the latter) might relate to what I am saying about being involved in the story and only for that reason ‘And then there were none’ or ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ stays the top favorite among hundreds of detective short stories for many readers. So how did ‘Penumbra’ fare in this aspect? I would say it did this in part, except for the *key clue*, which was not available for the reader to help solve the puzzle.
Growing up we would all have played the classic detective board game, ‘Clues’. The game consists of six suspects, six weapons, nine rooms, and a murder, the players take turns to guess the murderer, who is randomly selected among the players by a pick of cards. This book is similar to the game and has similar characters. It follows the classic whodunit style. If you were looking for an Indian version Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie or our very own Byomkesh you might pick this book.
I like jumping into the books without reading much about them. I try not to read the blurb before I pick a book up if I can help it. I did read the plot summary on its blurb before I received this book for a review, a while ago but had completely forgotten what I had read. So I dove directly into the book without an idea what to expect. How did that end up for me? Read more to know.
