Author: James Patterson and Ashwin Sanghi
Book Blurb:
When Santosh Wagh isn’t struggling out of a bottle of whisky he’s head of Private India, the Mumbai branch of the world’s finest PI agency.
In a city of over thirteen million he has his work cut out at the best of times. But now someone is killing women – seemingly unconnected women murdered in a chilling ritual, with strange objects placed carefully at their death scenes.
As Santosh and his team race to find the killer, an even greater danger faces Private India – a danger that could threaten the lives of thousands of innocent Mumbai citizens
My Review:
It has been a while since I picked up a good murder mystery, so when Blogadda sent this book over for a review I was ecstatic. Also the copy is Author signed! 🙂
The book is fast paced and the chapters are just two or three pages long, which means every time you feel like putting the book down a little voice says: But the next chapter is just 3 pages! And so you continue and it takes immense self disciple to put down the book as you need to do some real world work too. The book is very easy to read and the bigger letter size helps one to read faster!
The story has not just one, but a series of murders happening in Mumbai in a short span. All ladies from different walks of life are found dead and the only way to tell that they are done by the same murderer is that he leaves a signature yellow scarf around the neck of the victims along with few random objects.
Along with this there is a subtle larger plot of ISI and bombing, which makes it all the more interesting as the readers are not given a clue as to why this is going on.
Also along with the familiar streets of Mumbai, we see subtle glances of Indian Mythology weaved intricately into the story line, which was a first and interesting twist.
I loved the fact that in between there were chapters from the murderer’s point of view in a way that the readers know what the murder is thinking, But do not know who is he or she nor do we come to know the motive of the murder. I believe that really increased the interest.
The ending was just exceptional, the last parts where you think you know the killer, but maybe you don’t just makes you want to read faster!
This is one of the best murder mysteries I have read, and definitely the best that I have read by an Indian Author.
If murder mysteries are your thing and you grew up on Agatha Christie’s go for this, you won’t be disappointed!
I have not read private series’ other books, but I will definitely pick it
(This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!)
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