Book Review: Private India

I was picked by Blogadda guys finally for book review and I was glad to receive  copy of Private India by Ashwin Sanghi and James Patterson.

 

Ashwin Sanghi is counted among India’s highest selling English fiction authors. He has written three novels, all best sellers- The Rozabal Line, Chanakya’s Chant and The Krishna Key. He was included by Forbes India in their Celebrity 100 list.

James Patterson is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. He is an author of some of the most popular series of the past decade- the Alex Cross, Women’s Murder Club and Detective Michael Bennett novels- and he has written many other number one bestsellers including romance novels and stand-alone thrillers.

If you read the title you might think its about some dark secrets of India as a nation, the cover will tell you its based in Mumbai, while that did turn out partly to be true – but more from a fictional perspective. Private India is about a private investigating agency going by the same name based out of a secret location in Mumbai.

Its about a serial killer who has his own unique method of leaving his mark on his victims, and I loved the way Ashwin Sanghi has added an Indian mythological touch to it. “Santosh” the head of Private India’s Indian operations moves on from investing one murder to another trying to put pieces of puzzle together. The author keeps giving clues to its readers to try and work out possible Murderer, but does not make it that easy. I like how every once in a while author has included a chapter from the murderer’s perspective, those chapters are so well written that you can not even figure out the gender of the murderer leave aside figuring out the murderer.

The story revolves around Santosh and the murderer, the chase, of Santosh trying to guess the next move of the murderer, it keeps the reader engrossed. I loved the way real life incidents were intertwined well with this fictional story. Being a Mumbaikar helped to visualize the locations described in the book, perhaps mumbaikars will love it more for it. The informal easy flowing language, with a dash of slang thrown in here and there works well for the realistic feel. I was glad author did not over do it.

The author seems to have researched well to tell readers about an ancient tribe, now what has an ancient tribe got to do with murder mystery, suggest read the book for it. Locations , historical event details, and characters seem well researched and make you feel being closer at the scene. Description of each scene is done so well that I could actually visualize almost every small detail of the events in the book.

What could have added value would have been map of mumbai and how our serial killer went about. This would help non-mumbaikars familiarise and understand the book better.

All in all its a good murder mystery to read and one will surely get their money’s worth by the time one reaches the end of the book- oh did I say it as if one was buying a movie ticket? Well I tweeted to Ashwin saying this book must be converted into a movie and he did reply saying- lets hope!! 😉

 

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