I would begin and end my review with those three words had this not been a review copy. ‘Salvation of a Saint’ by Keigo Higashino landed in my kitty as a book reviewer as a result of fierce PR activity that this writer/publisher is wont to do. I remember the massive noise Higashino’s first book – The Devotion of Suspect X – made in India’s blogging circles.

I finally managed to finish the book today after lugging it around for a while. And I call it lugging not for its weight or volume but for its sheer bore factor. Higashino is a genius with his basic plots but boy, does he drag his feet. If I was disappointed with Suspect X, I’ve downright disliked Salvation. Like the previous book, I have a problem with this one’s title too. ‘Salvation of a Saint’ makes no sense right to the end. I’m beginning to wonder if these are translation problems. Perhaps the Japanese title has nuances that are lost to English readers.

The plot revolves around the principal characters of Ayane Mashiba, wife of a young and wealthy Yoshitaka Mashiba, Hiromi Wakayama, her young apprentice and a bunch of detectives. Ayane and Hiromi are prime suspects when Yoshitaka is found dead from poisoning. In true Higashino style, a case is built up with iron clad alibis, investigative dead ends, scientific solutions, and with even a romantic angle thrown in for good measure. But for the longest time – almost two thirds of the book – the plot goes round and round in the same place exploring the same angle. You can almost picture the author laboring to fill pages to match the commissioning editor’s page count. I was tempted to abandon the book very often at this point. It must be super hard being a thriller writer, weaving in dead ends and sub plots in a story, staving off the end the way Higashino does. Yawn.

The book picks up pace only in the last 50 pages, when the real story and the real suspect are brought to the fore. There has been no evolution of style from the last book, and Higashino still writes in his crisp, visual manner, and with an evident love of science and forensics. If I make the mistake of reading a third book by the same author, I’ll perhaps be able to tell that it is a Higashino book even without looking at the book cover. Familiar characters from the Metropolitan Police Department hold the plot, including detectives Kusanagi and Kishitani and chief Mamiya. A new addition to the characters, in the form of Utsumi, a junior female detective, is welcome. We also meet eccentric physicist Professor Yukawa from the Imperial University, who is instrumental in cracking the case.

When the mystery is finally revealed to the reader, it is nothing short of amazing, but it was definitely not worth my time and patience. Don’t think I’m going down a Higashino lane again.

This post was submitted by Urmi Chanda-Vaz.

In her debut novel, Madhumita Mukherjee assumes the voices of Abhi, a budding neurosurgeon based in London, and Uma, a young medical student from Kolkata and charts their friendship through many, many letters exchanged over the years. There is no real beginning and no real end to this story, no one tells you how Abhi and Uma came to be friends, and what their friendship culminated into. When you open the book, you suddenly find yourself in the middle of their lives, secretly reading through their private, prized stash of letters.

The quintessential bachelor Abhi, and the nubile Uma talk earnestly to each other through these letters, sharing details – big and small – about their lives. They talk about love, they talk about friends and family, and they talk the talk of doctors. Abhi is ever the light-hearted and well meaning older friend, while Uma is feisty in her blooming youth. There is warm affection some times, and sweet reprimands at others. Some faux anger here, and real appeasement there. When a crisis befalls one, there is firm handholding by another. Sometimes, Abhi is the guardian, and sometimes, Uma the caregiver. Roles switch easily in this beautiful Platonic relationship, where they seek little else from each other but honest words on a piece of paper.

Mukherjee writes as efficiently as Abhi as she does Uma, and the reader never finds a gender bias in her voice – at least I, as a woman reader, didn’t think so. Her style is easy and her words, relate-able. A doctor herself, she offers some interesting insights into the lives of doctors. She also balances perfectly the distance and dynamics of this fictional relationship, with neither Uma nor Abhi ever stepping into the sexual zone a man-woman are so wont to do. But one sees the foundations of their relationships growing stronger, an invisible yet undeniable proprietorship building over each other over the years. When Abhi is faced with a life-threatening illness, Uma takes the final leap of faith and seals their bond by joining him in person, their distances bridged forever.

‘The Other Side of the Table’ is a part light-part poignant read and it has its memorable bits. However, neither Abhi nor Uma are people who you will count among your favourite characters. That’s because you are never really part of the plot, but a mere reader of letters they’ve written immersed in each other.

This post was submitted by Urmi Vaz.

Page after page of this book, I’ve been burned. Page after page, I’ve suffered as a reader. Page after page, I’ve yo-yoed from heaven to hell and back. I’ve seen creations divine, and endured the labour pains that every creation demands. Author Rabishankar Bal takes you through the agonising journey of two creators of beauty and if you are a writer/poet yourself, the book feels like a kick in the gut. And yet I held on, read it as slowly as I could, wishing this sweet pain would never end.

Dozakhnama is originally a Bengali novel by acclaimed author, Rabishankar Bal and it has been translated into English by Arunava Sinha. Between its pages lie Saadat Hasan Manto and Mirza Ghalib conversing with each other from their graves. The sutradhar is an author who has stumbled upon an unpublished work of Manto’s and has set out to translate it. In this mysterious manuscript is recorded this fantastical conversation between modern Urdu writer, Manto and one of the greatest poets in Indian history, Ghalib.

Speaking across nearly a century, Manto and Ghalib share the stories of their lives with ghosts for company in the night. Manto and Ghalib take turns in every alternate chapter to share a piece of their lives and soon the line between historical facts and fiction is blurred. Bal owns their voices with such confidence that one is loathe to believe that the words are not really Manto’s or Ghalib’s. Sprinkled with little dastaans and poetry by greats like Mir and Rumi and of course, Ghalib, the book charts not just the life of these two artists, but also the literary ethos of India from the 19th through the 20th centuries.

Though far removed from each other in time, Ghalib’s and Manto’s journeys seem similar. But then, all artists have journeys like these – travelling through their personal dozakhs, their private hells while creating honest art. Ghalib and Manto both had their share of love, poverty, victory, heartbreak, alcoholism, and persecution for their truth, their words. Ghalib’s India at the end of Mughal rule, and Manto’s India at the end of British rule are very different, yet the trials of an artist’s life are the same, the cycle of pain and creation neverending. Bal chronicles their lives and poetry and pain in one seamless breath, creating this masterpiece of a book. A thought must also be spared for Arunava Sinha and how he too must have partaken of this fire when translating this book. It’s brilliant and I believe none of the effulgence of the original work was lost in translation.

This post was submitted by Urmi Vaz.

When Reema sent me this book, I was unimpressed with the aesthetics of the cover. It seemed mystifying, but not enough for me to pick it up immediately. After months, when all my ‘review’ books were finally done with, I sat down with ‘A River Sutra’, and it wouldn’t be exaggeration to say that I drowned immediately. I realised within a few pages what The Illustrated Weekly of India meant when it said ‘A River Sutra is a seminal book’ (as quoted on the cover).

Page after page I wondered why the Amishs and Chetan Bhagats of the world have gotten popular and why a book like ‘A River Sutra’ hasn’t enjoyed its deserving share of accolades. The book is a collection of stories – the monk’s, the teacher’s, the executive’s, the courtesan’s, the musician’s, and the minstrel’s – interlinked by the retired government official’s, who acts as the sutradhar. The stories are all based along the banks of the Narmada, bringing alive its many myths and legends, coloured through the lenses of human emotion and experience. Each story is poignant, absorbing and with a magical quality to it. They are all tales of human transformation from the physical to the metaphysical, just like deliverance through the sacredness of the river Narmada.

Mehta’s genius shines through in every story – both as a short story writer and a novelist. The vivid, human and completely believable protagonist of every story illustrates the writer’s masterful character sketching, and one is led on rapid journeys one after the other. Whether it is the executive’s bored life in the city followed by a mysterious encounter with a tribal woman, or the courtesan’s tryst with a notorious bandit, each tale not
just involves the reader, but inundates him, washes him away like the swollen waters of the Narmada. Mehta writes lyrical prose and often quotes the most beautiful couplets from famous works, ranging from Rumi to Shankaracharya. She writes with the kind of simplicity only possible for geniuses, yet never compromising on her artistry. The musician’s story, in particular, pierced my heart with an intensity I’ve not encountered in literature often. Her knowledge of the Narmada myths, Indian culture and music come through without ever sounding pedantic.

Gita Mehta has easily become one of my favourite Indian English authors, and I can place her among the ranks of Anita Desai. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in contemporary Indian fiction in all its beauty.

This post was submitted by Urmi Vaz.

But ‘Maid in Singapore’ has a plot that one will not forget in a hurry. Kishore Modak writes about a modern nuclear family with an Indian wife Rashmi, a British husband, David, and their adolescent son of mixed ethnicity, Jay. When they are forced to move from London to Singapore, their life takes an unexpected turn. The presence of their new Filipino maid, Mary, triggers off a chain of events stemming from infidelity. The lead up is rather complex but it will be safe to mention that the plot has a lot of meat in it involving kinky sex, bastard children, cancer, homosexuality and even a gender change operation thrown in for good measure.

The story is apparently based on true events (gulp), and it chills one to think this is more than fiction. Like I’ve mentioned above, despite the intrigue of the plot, Modak’s style of writing is strangely sterile. It is difficult to put a finger on what exactly is lacking in the style, but it’s somehow clinical. Despite the shame, anger, blame, resignation and acceptance the protagonists go through, they fail to touch you. Here you’re reading about a man-wife relationship gone bad, a terminal illness, even sexual deviations, but you never once feel anything on the left side of your chest, or the corner of your eye.

And then there are times, when the author gets into a philosophical mood and leaves you with a mouthful of words and little else. Sample these lines:

Time, it simply moves away from us, leaving us in a rut of petty, personal tangles, forcing us to look down, down where there is nothing but the mundane to toy with, while on top things move steadily away on the waves of time, reaching the horizon before moving out of sight, forever, never once waiting for us to look up.

OR

Isn’t marriage supposed to enliven our sexual fantasies, keeping us physically contented in its holy circle, nuptial gravity ensuring that we don’t waver outwards, tangentially away from the circumference into the realm of infidelity?

You feel like slapping the editor at these points, but then the next murky turn distracts you. So, Maid in Singapore is a twisty story of human frailties – convincing, well-told even, but one with no heart in it.

This post was submitted by Urmi Chanda-Vaz.

Let me start with the protagonist of the story. Anna Sanderson, a reporter in Kabul, is a supposed Londoner – supposed because her language is anything but British. She’s more like an American who suddenly realizes she’s supposed to be British, so she throws in a word or two of slang here and there. Second is what she does – more soldiers, generals and colonels than reporting.

Now, let’s move on to the plot. Anna Sanderson has a best friend. The best friend’s boyfriend keeps cheating on her. Best friend wants to get back at him, so she plans to use some arms dealings information against him. It’s a long shot by far, but they decide to follow the lead anyway. In Taliban-ruled country. In the middle of bombings and war. While Anna has her own lover boy to lust after in the middle of all the wham-bam-thank-you-maam she’s doing on the side. They name this mission of theirs (brace yourself) Operation Lipstick.

Author Pia Heikkila’s writing is average at best. The characters are blah. Tons of spelling errors and bad grammar are the highlights of the book. What I can’t wrap my head around is that, how can a journalist write so badly? TV or not, the basics should be in place, shouldn’t they? Given her professional background, she should be more of a visual story-teller, but she’s not. The importance to sex is absolutely unnecessary and adds nothing to the book. But then, nothing she says adds anything to the book, which leaves me wondering how it even came to be published.

So, should you read the book just for the heck of it? Let me put it this way: if you’re the sort of person that has never read a book in their life and has just half an hour to live before the world ends for good, then and only then pick up this book. Since you’re going to be dying anyway, you can commit this last grave folly and cleanse yourself in the afterlife.

This post was submitted by Nabila Tazyeen.

Meet Henry VIII, king of England, opulence and young, nubile women. Spoilt, pampered, and in need of constant reassurance of his masculinity and superiority. Betrothed to Queen Katherine but always on the lookout for the next feminine conquest, King Henry’s life changes when his roving eye rests on The Other Boleyn Girl.

Set in Tudor England, Philippa Gregory’s novel reveals the truth and political motivations behind Henry’s life with Mary and Anne Boleyn – one a mistress and the other a queen. The Boleyn family seeks power, and believe that the way to gain it is by pushing Mary Boleyn forward to win the king’s ‘favour’. Anne, her ambitious older sister returned from the French courts where she has learned much through observation, assists her in besotting the king. Because Queen Katherine has failed to bear the king any sons, the Boleyns urge Mary to make some heirs with the king – preferably sons.

Mary has two children by Henry, but during her second pregnancy, he starts losing interest in her. So the Boleyns do what they can to keep the king’s interests within the family: they ask Anne to take Mary’s place. What follows is a saga of epic proportions, with a build-up that leaves you biting your nails and speechless.

The book is an absolute page-turner, well-researched and equally well-written with a plot around the trademark Tudor immorality and dirty political games. The story is narrated in first-person, making it an even more interesting read.

To say anything more about The Other Boleyn Girl would be to give away the entire story. So I’ll stop here and hope that the review whets your appetite for the book just as much as the beguiling mannerisms of the Boleyn sisters whetted King Henry’s appetite for them. Until then, god speed.

This post was submitted by Nabila Tazyeen.

The Krishna Key is the Da Vinci Code for India in truly Indiana Jones style. Slickly written with honest edge of the seat thrills and non-stop twists and turns!

The Krishna Key is the hidden secret which is probably the key to ‘alchemy’ and thus the way to unlimited wealth. When 4 seals that together form the Krishna Key are unearthed by archaeologist Anil Varshney, he knows he found something extremely precious and dangerous too. He takes care to send them across to 4 trusted friends who would know it’s true value and safeguard them. But, the final avataar of Krishna – Kalki Avataar – discovers of their existence and will go to any lengths to get them.

It’s left to his dearest friend Historian Ravi Mohan Saini to travel the key locations of Krishna’s life to safeguard the seals and keeping the ‘villains’ at bay.

I must confess, I haven’t read too many books by Indian authors. Not for any racial bias, but I largely read only thrillers and that’s not a genre for many Indian writers. A chance first chapter read in Femina made me get the book. The book moves at a fast pace and has very well crafted characters. From ‘Mataji’ to Sir Khan! What makes the story telling more fun is the fact that there are umpteen references to the Mahabharata and the Bhagvad Gita. For those of us, who never had the time to read and understand the key points of these mythologies, the book shares the relevant and the interesting parts in just the right doses!

The book should also make a great movie. If I had to find a fault with the book, well in the end it becomes like a Hindi film with an ending that’s unbelievable.

Nevertheless, a great book specially for a nice flight or train ride! Pick it up if you enjoyed Dan Brown or thrillers from Ludlum and James Patterson.

This post was submitted by Jermina Menon.

Fundamentally, this book lets the readers down on facts. If only John Perkins, the author put down facts or substantiated his claims it would’ve been a phenomenal insight. Secondly, it is more an ode to John Perkins himself, the guilty man expressing regret, but conveniently lived the life of regret for twenty years.

But, assuming this book was published as a report, leaving out the frills & charlatanism, and submitted before the ICJ for review, it would make a start for a thorough overhaul of International Trade regulations.

For me personally, this book is dry & unsubstantiated. Leaves a few questions unanswered, about which I thought I knew.

This post was submitted by Kaushik Rajan.

‘Life of Pi’ is a wonderful, whimsical story about Piscine Molitor Patel – ‘known to all as Pi Patel’ – and his journey across the Pacific on a lifeboat with a tiger! The 16-year-old protagonist thinks he is the sole survivor of a sunken ship, until he finds himself aboard with four animals from his father’s zoo – a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and Richard Parker, the Royal Bengal Tiger. The other three animals get eaten and Pi is left alone on the lifeboat with the tiger. The story proceeds to tell us how he survives the endless Pacific, keeping the tiger and his sanity alive for more than 200 days. Teetering of the edge of life and death, Pi learns the many secrets of animal life, in a bid to survive among them.

Parable-like, ‘The Pacific’ is the second and the largest section of the book that talk about Pi’s life at sea. It is here that the meat (and a lot of astounding special effects in case of the movie) of the story lies. However, my personal favourite is the first part of the book, which is called ‘Toronto and Pondicherry’. This part is about the teenager’s life before the wreckage, and his finding a love for God in all religions. Martel slips in simple, insightful messages about harmony in religions, about finding divine comfort in small places and things like prayer rugs or church bells or incense sticks. This part also talks about the nature of animals, within and outside of zoos, and the author’s thorough research throws delightful little tidbits of information your way, without ever preaching.

The third and last part of the story ‘Mexico’ is when Pi washes aboard the Mexican town of Tomatlan, parts ways with Richard Parker and returns to human habitation. The most striking part of this section is Pi’s retelling of his story to two Japanese officers, who refuse to believe that Pi lived and survived with wild animals on board. Martel, through Pi, substitutes the animals with human characters and recounts his tale, leaving the reader wondering if the story was a parable all along.

‘Life of Pi’ is a fantastic book, and one page after another, you realise why the work won the Booker, so much acclamation, and a place in cinematic history. Readers of all kinds and ages will find this book appealing for its simplicity, brilliance and unforgettable story. It is definitely going into my ‘ask-son-to-read’ list of books.

This post was submitted by Urmi Vaz.