James Patterson and his Mumbai trip
Title: Private India
Author: Ashwin Sanghi and James Patterson
Publisher: Arrow Books
Genre: Mystery/ Thriller
Pages: 470
The authors and a crime mystery were the reason why I wanted to review this book. After a bout of love stories, a crime mystery was a welcome break. While the plot seemed intriguing and interesting, the thickness of the book made me wonder if I could finish reading it in the stipulated time. While the book was not gripping, it still piqued my curiosity and that’s exactly how I finished reading the book.
The story line talks about Private India, the Indian wing of Private Worldwide, an investigating agency owned and run by Jack Morgan. Santosh Wagh heads the Indian arm of Private India and is a character that keeps talking to himself in his head and needs booze to keep him going. Santosh’s team includes Mubeen, the forensic expert, Nisha Gandhe, the smart lady on board and the tech expert Hari. The other important character in the book is Rupesh, who definitely has an interesting part to keep the story afloat. Apart from these there was a generous sprinkle of other characters named Munna and Nimboo baba, which came across more like clichéd Bollywood characters. Amidst all these characters is the Attorney General Nalin D’souza who shows off his sophistication and charisma on all the women he meets.
The story kicks off with the murder of a foreign national followed by more murders. The murderer fancies killing women by strangling them with a yellow garrotte as he leaves clues in the form of props. The story takes you on a Mumbai darshan all along. Private India takes its job seriously of finding the person responsible for all the mayhem and amidst all this ends up foiling a terror attack. In short, this was a sub-plot that was stashed along with the main story. I didn’t really think that was necessary though.
While the main story is woven decently and keeps one guessing, the end felt like a damp squib. The story could have been better, mediocre use of English was another let down. Some extremely Bollywoodish style cheesy lines like “You bastard, what are you thinking? Why are you messing with my head?” was more than annoying.
The narrative was decent, but fell flat at a few points. The Mujahideen angle and the reference to the Criminal tribes seemed unnecessary and for a moment made me lose interest. However, the way the motive of the murderer was disclosed and the connection with the props seemed apt and well written. While the story took great trouble in portraying the issue of transgenders and transsexuals, it didn’t really do justice to it.
With 116 chapters and 460 pages, this book was a concoction of drama, suspense, some generous amounts of history and mythology which in the end made up a thriller which is worth reading once.
Ratings:
What’s hot:
A powerful starting storyline which then takes its readers across Mumbai as more murders happen.
What’s not:
Two awesome authors co-authoring a book which falls slack at a lot of instances.
Final Verdict:
All in all, a book worthy of a good Bollywood thriller.
Rating: 3/5
