80 Not Out by Dickie Bird
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When you read a book where Dickie Bird is praising Bob Paisley, saying how humble a man the Scouser was, you know you have something special in your hand.
This book is a running commentary on how to stay humble even when people know you, recognize you and clamour for your autograph.
It also acts as a guide for people looking for ways to stay humble, even after receiving truckload of honors, including a couple from Her Majesty.
It can also serve as a textbook for those looking to keep their feet firmly on the ground, after coming to know that they have been appointed the President of World famous county cricket club.
It should be regularly given to sport stars(the ones with super inflated ego, basically each one of them) so that they may remember how to lead a “normal” life.
It should also be given to budding writers, to realize that a great book can be written by using common words, phrases, sentences etc.

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Modi Mandate 2019: Dispatches from Ground Zero by Pradeep Bhandari
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5/5

What worked for me:
1. The length of the book : Thankfully the author kept the book short and all the chapters were precise and too the point.
2. Academic : If you are looking for juicy tidbits on inner workings of any political party then you wont get it here. This is much more about constituencies, their caste combinations, the vote transfers etc.
3. Reach : If the author is to be believed, then he and his team had surely reached out to almost all the constituencies in the country, and ended up predicting the numbers quite accurately.

What didn't work for me:
1. Boring : This feels like an academic work, with no view into the inner mechanisms of the parties. We don't get to know about the strategies or the logistical challenges faced by them.
2. Weak writing style : The book feels repetitive. The phrases are repetitive, it feels that if you have read about one state you know all the other states.
3. Bengal : The author wants me to believe that everyone he managed to interview spoke Hindi in West Bengal. That's pretty unbelievable for me.

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My Adventures with Satyajit Ray: The Making of Shatranj Ke Khilari by Suresh Jindal
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

5/5

What worked for me:
1. The bag of information which is presented to us.
2. The book gives us a glimpse into the professional life of a film producer.
3. The letters add a personal touch to the whole book. Instead of using a narrative style, the letters almost makes the reader feel that he/she is privy to their conversation.
4. The photographs, their quality and their numbers.

What didn't work for me:
1. The letters do not shed any light as to the selection process of many of the artistes. As to why they were chosen, or some of them were rejected.
2. I guess, some of Mr. Jindal's letters are missing, as quite a few times we can feel that the letters of Ray did elicit an answer from the author, but there aren't any letter to support that view. Maybe he had used the telephone.

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Pretty Things by Janelle Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three point review:
-Nothing out of the ordinary, plot wise, but it did have some nice twists.
-Characters were few, and they were perfectly tailored for a thriller.
-Cloud have done with a little bit of editing and shortening of length.

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Let Me Say it Now by Rakesh Maria
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What worked for me:
1. Everything. The fluid writing style, the details, the arrangement of the chapters...everything was tailor made to make the reader feel at ease, while sitting on the edge of the seat.

What didn't work for me:
1. Nothing, except that the book should have had some snaps. Some pictures from his life would have been a pleasant addition.

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Spring Tide by Cilla Börjlind
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Spring Tide by Cilla Börjlind, Rolf Börjlind is set in Sweden and features the duo of Olivia Ronning and Tom Stilton. The writer duo is known for their script writing for the martin Beck film, and this book also feels like a well scripted fast mystery movie. Keeping in tune with Nordic crime thrillers the book did have its moments of brutality, but these moments were instead of being put on paper, more left to the imagination of the reader.

The plot was fast, and had it fair share of twists and turns. And most importantly the writers were able to stop me from guessing quite early where the whole story was heading; instead they did a brilliant job of putting a BIG red herring and leading me the wrong way. A very enjoyable mystery which without going too deep into psychological thing, kept the book crisp and entertaining.


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The Blind Man of Seville by Robert Wilson
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Ups:
1. A healthy and intriguiging start.
2. A very evocative description of Seville and Tangiers.
3. Falcon Sr.’s journals.

Downs :
1. After 200 pages have gone by the speed starts to slow and slowwwww.
2. The investigation gets nowhere and the personal problems of the protagonist piles up.
3. The ending. After a boring and long drawn 400+ pages, this is the ending that the author wanted to reveal. Dissapointing to say the least.
4. Never knew someone wrote journals in direct speech approach.
5. The protagonist hardly creates any emotion in my mind except that he came out to be weak and whinning.
6. This book felt just like a P.D. James novel.
7. The book should have been names “The Co-Incidences of Seville”

Verdict : Why can’t these guys just write a nicely twisted and fast paced crime novel.



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A Beam of Light by Andrea Camilleri
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A Beam of Light by Andrea Camilleri is the latest in the Inspector Salvu Montalbano series penned by him, set in the fictional Italian town of Vigata. Like many of its predecessors this book also features a classic Andrea Camilleri format of having two crimes run parallel to each other. In this case there is a supposedly “Rape and Robbery”, a case of illegal arms trade, and a Mafia style murder. Also present is the somewhat peculiar relation between Montalbano and Livia, with an additional character in the form of a beautiful gallery owner called Marian.

Some authors fail to turn a book interesting with a pretty twisted plot in the tip of their pens, and whereas Andrea Camilleri with very simple and straightforward plots never fail to create a book which is not only fast and entertaining, but is emotional too. The humour quotient was missing and somehow this one was much more emotionally dark than any other Montalabano books I have read earlier. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed it and would love to pick up the series in near future again.


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The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Girl In the Spider’s Web is the FOURTH instalment which most of us millennium fans had been waiting for. The book reached my hands quite early, but as I was stuck with a slow but steady historical mystery, I was not able to pick it up. Firstly, this book isn’t(I guess) the unfinished fourth book which Steig Larson had left when he was suddenly and sadly taken away from us. David Lagercrantz just took the characters and meshed them into a plot created by him, which was true to the themes of the original Larsson trilogy.

The first thing that I noticed while reading was that Mr. Lagercrantz never compromised with the speed. The first three books were lengthy, and though they never held a typical pure cat and mouse chase between the good and the bad, the books were never dull or slow. The fourth one was also the same. But, one sore thumb coming out of the book was the fact that the villains never felt complete. Their characterisation or their background somehow left me wanting for more. And the sad thing was that these guys were real interesting characters. Some detailing on them would have been much appreciated.

Other than this small glitch, the whole endeavour came out as smooth as silk. The violence made me sick, the pace made me giddy, Lisbeth’s prowess with the computer made me smile and to top it all Mr. Lagercrantz also made that one character appear in a big way, whose name always was mentioned in the previous books, but she always maintained to remain in the background. All in all this was a truly enjoyable read, and I hope this is not just one book affair, and we continue to get a series out of this.

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Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For me there are always two kind of successful crime novels. One that has a tight plot, a modus operandi of the protagonist which flushes out the culprit from amongst the rubble. A novel as such, might or might not have a very potent ambience attached to it. The reader might not feel connected to the setting in which the events take place. The descriptions might not be that vivid. But the fact that the novel delivers a potent plot with a strong ending makes up for these shortfalls and ultimately turns the book into a successful crime novel.

The second sort is, the one which has a strong ambience to back up a plot which is not that twisted, neither the deduction powers of the protagonist gets called upon to point out the culprit. The culprit almost flushes himself out. But, the reader almost gets carried away to the time and place where the novel is set. The writer not only presents the reader with a landscape but also shows the mentality of the people living at that time. The potency is strong enough to overcome the shortfall of the plot.

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin falls into the second category. Here we had a novel which managed to encompass three geographical entities into one novel. She brought into the pages of her novel, Cambridge, Salerno and the Middle East all in the setting of 1100s. She gave a short but detailed panorama of the early crusades. She then proceeded to tell us readers, how the Salerno School of Medicine allowed female practitioners in their ranks. Actually this is what I like with historical crime fiction. Even if the crime quotient gets a bit low at times, these books never cease to educate me in terms of history.

But, I expected a bit more from the plot and how it ended. Had this been a run of the mill plot where a king is threatened and the knight is called to save him, I wouldn’t have minded. But, Ms. Franklin laid down a plot which featured gory child deaths, a female coroner, old thirst for vengeance carried over from the crusades. She bought in the Jews being persecuted by the Christians, she introduced a masked devil called Rakshasa. I had expected that the end would come through shifting of clues and finally pinpointing the devil and then a showdown in the last chapters. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. But as I said earlier, the atmosphere compensated for this shortcoming.

A must read for any crime fiction lover, with a serious soft spot for this sub genre.



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The Universal Tone: My Life by Carlos Santana
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

You know who was the original hippie? Jesus—the ultimate multidimensional, multicolor, nothing-but-love hippie. He never said, “It’s my way or the highway.”

How many people can claim that they were on first name basis with Miles Davis, Buddy Guy(though he used the surname of the author more often, Wayne Shorter and many such legends and yet be humble and down to earth. Even when he picks up a project of writing his autobiography. Very few can. Carlos Santana is one of them. He had proved this earlier with his words and music, and once again he proves that through THE UNIVERSAL TONE.

What is the best deal one can get from this book? The one which says that if you read this book, you will not only get to read about the life of Carlos, but also the reader will get a short and concise course on the life of Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Bill Graham. Carlos Santana almost speaks with a childlike joy when he starts on Miles and Coltrane. He gives away the vibe of an awestruck fan when he discusses their life, and their music. He speaks like a music addict high on his drug as he brings Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Bola Sete, Gabor Szabo in his pages. He creates a book which not only talks about his life, his spirituality his vision but also gives the readers about his idols, his favourite “cats” as he calls them.

His friend Andre Agassi spoke about his addiction in his book aptly named OPEN. Carlos speaks about once hitting a woman, speaks about the infamous Woodstock based “Electric Snake” incident without any shame. He speaks about shunning cocaine and accepting marijuana. On how he felt the cool vibes coming from Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Wilson Pickett. Or how he still considers Frank Zappa a wonderful musician, even after the latter almost parodied Carlos in one of his song. He is open about his admiration for Guru Sri Chinmoy, his friendship mixed admiration for Armando Peraza, the man who urged his to take control of his eponymous band Santana. He speaks about his divorce from Deborah Santana, his devotion for Cindy Blackman. His admiration and anger towards his mom and dad.

This book could have been a five star if not for some minor glitches. One, he speaks almost nothing about Raul Rekow, the ultimate conger in the Santana family, or Orestes Vilato, the timbalero who along with Raul and Armando created the best rhythm section. I did skip a few pages where he talks about Alice Coltrane. I never synced up to Turiya’s music, and never went through the pages with her in them. That took away a star. Even though this still will be a must have for a Santana fan.




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As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust by Alan Bradley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The last book had warned us readers, and this book confirmed our fears along with that of Flavia. She gets banished, to Miss. Bodycote’s Academy in Canada, to start her “training” which according to Aunt Felicity would fulfil her destiny, just like her mother. Flavia reaches Canada, accompanied by two “pills” called Dr. amd Mrs. Rainsmith. Mr. Rainsmith puts up his name in Flavia’s bad books as soon as he introduces himself,

“Dogger had once warned me to be wary of any man who introduced himself as “Mr.” It was an honorific, he said, a mark of respect to be bestowed by others, but never, ever, under any circumstances, upon oneself.”

On reaching Bodycote, Falvia gets assigned to a room called Edith Cavell. No sooner does she settles into her bed, she starts getting slapped, and then no sooner had she stopped and started the deduction process to find “why”, the assault-ress manages to bring down a body of a woman, which was hidden inside the chimney. As the head slides down the floor, the Chimney Sweepers come to dust, to clear away the puzzle regarding the dead woman, missing students and ghosts.

Flavia misses her village and her family, and Dogger. And we miss them as much as she does. But, to keep us away from our sadness we get to meet some entertaining students with nice names, a teacher suspected of homicide, a wheelchair bound mistress who keeps stuffed animals, birds and skulls in her laboratory and lastly a principal, who loves to punish her students in unimaginable ways.

Flavia transforms from a happy-go-lucky, and sometimes sad girl, into a “banished” adolescent far away from home, who realises that no letters are coming from home, except from Dogger. Who realises that the truth must be reached through facts, and only facts and that emotions should be kept at bay. And she also comes face to face with deep sadness. As such faced by a little girl who is far away from home, with no letters to look forward to, and no laboratory turn to.

“Magic doesn’t work when you’re sad.”

Flavia might have been heading towards new territory, but Alan Bradley stays rooted in his original position and presents us with a taut fast paced mystery, once a spy thriller and the next moment a gothic murder mystery, with “lights out after dark”, ghosts in the hall, and dead bodies never discovered, and if discovered, they are found stuffed inside chimneys. And he doesn’t disappoint when it comes to twists too. Not one, but two twists remain to be served in the last course.

P.S. Isn’t Dame Agatha Christie the greatest of them all?? Sometimes she looks to me like that Blues guitarist whose licks are sampled by everyone but no one gives him the credit for being a master musician. I think it’s for once and all that the tag attached to Christie, saying that she is a great plotter and a horrible writer, should be dropped. If she was a horrible writer then why would she be “sampled” hither and tither, and even if she IS a horrible writer, she still will remain the best. The Queen.
As Flavia said,
“Could I, by sheer chance, have stumbled upon one of those classic killings, such as those written about by Miss Christie, in which the murderer mocks the police by carrying out killings that mimic nursery rhymes or fairy tales?”


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The Snack Thief by Andrea Camilleri
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Snack Thief begins when a Tunisian immigrant, while on sea aboard a fishing boat is gunned down. Salvu refuses to get involved in that case as another body is found inside the elevator of a residential building. The two cases gets connected later as Salvu finds himself in front of a mystery involving characters ranging from a snack thief to an international criminal.

Camilleri, though used international politics in this book, kept it minimum and thus didn’t turn the book into a hardcore spy thriller. Rather he used the backdrop of international terrorism to create a piece of crime fiction which had a simple plot, and the flow of which wasn’t to bumpy. The book never entered the zone where the plot gets too twisted to follow; rather it maintained calmness throughout, with liberal sprinklings of twists here and there.

The book like the others from Camilleri weren’t devoid of humour. Paras which contained scenes of Salvu reading the newspaper and going through the headlines, though brutal, still brought laughter to the reader. These scenes return in every book, and the way in which the crimes are described makes them funny each time. Such is the quality of Andrea Camilleri as a writer.


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The Laws of Murder by Charles Finch
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The year is 1876, and Charles Lenox is just out of the parliament with some bad men to catch. Seven baddies to be exact, all of whom has eluded justice. The book starts as he packs away the sixth, felling him to a trap which used the baddy’s greed to full potential. And thus Lenox contemplates the last. The meanest and the baddest of them all. But, he knows it is not easy to catch that guy, so he opens a detective agency, something unheard of in those days, with three colleagues. Bad press, and worse quotes from a supposed friend inside Scotland Yard follows, and the business goes off to a rocky start. The three partners start to bring cases and money except Lenox. He sits idle and contemplates his future as a case drops into his lap, involving the dropping dead of that same bad mouthing good friend within the Yard. Inspector Jenkins.

What worked for me???

1. Great humanist mind-set shown by the protagonist towards animals. The lines dedicated towards the horses of London, showed Lenox to be a man of great humanity and advanced thinking, coming from an Age, when his peers were still hanging and flogging us Indians in India. Lenox even doubts whether they will be able to hold on to India for long. An advanced yet sacrilegious though during that time.

2. Children are difficult to understand in real life, except maybe for their mothers. And they are more difficult to write about. Alan Bradley is doing a wonderful job of having a child as his sleuth, and portraying her as a well-developed character. Though not a main point in this book, Lenox draws up children pretty effectively. Georgina is a treat to read about even in those small paras dedicated to her. With proper timing she is a protagonist in the making.

3. The setting of late 1800s London. For a man who never set his foot outside India, Lenox did a commendable job of describing London from the very first page. From her rain soaked to days to the posture of her citizens which shows they are idling away their time, his descriptions were vivid.

4. Characters. Most of them were well developed. Right from the partner, to the competitor and the culprit, everyone was shown in multi-dimensional ways, which justified their acts. It never felt that “OK, we don’t know about this guy and his life or his character, but we just know that he is the culprit”.

5. Twists. The book was a crime novel, and so by default required twists. And Lenox provides them in abundance. From baddies to holy men and women, everyone was made to go through his twist machine.

What didn’t work for me?

1. The length of the novel could have been shorter. Somehow the length was a bit of a dampener for me. The plot on its own would have been tight and more enjoyable had the book been 50 odd pages shorter.


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The Secret Dead by S.J. Parris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“Because I believe God is bigger than the rules we impose on one another. I think He does not mind if we find different paths to Him.”

The more I keep reading these Historical mysteries , the more I come to realise that its religion in its purest form remains as Holy as ever, but somewhere down the line the "HOLY MEN" took matter into their own hands and turned religion and the concept of God, into one of the most vilified and untrustworthy of all human beliefs.

The story was fast, and the character of Giordano Bruno reminded me of another God fearing true man of God, Brother Cadfael. The story came out as a tragedy mystery element in the story was not that potent, but the writing skill of the author kept the pace high from the very first paragraph, and never slacked in between.

My first S.J. Parris experience, and it was a sad but a beautiful one.

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Satan's Fire by Paul Doherty
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Satan’s Fire written by Paul C. Doherty and featuring Sir Hugh Corbett, a clerk in the court of Edward I of England starts when the King visits York to meet the French envoy, to discuss the terms of marriage between the King’s son and the daughter of the King of France, Phillip III. No sooner had he reached York, than there was an attack on his life, which ultimately is revealed to be a threat from the Old Man of the Mountain and the Assassins. He asks Sir Hugh to investigate the threats as he is convinced the Knight Templars are involved in a conspiracy against him. Sir Hugh himself receives a threat from the same source as he starts to dig for the truth with the added responsibility of finding out a counterfeit who is using Gold to make and circulate coins without the King’s permission.

If compared to the Matthew Shardlake novels of C.J. Sansom, (though it can’t be done) some distinctive points of difference arise. One, unlike Matthew, Sir Hugh definitely remains in the good books of the King, and he himself holds a lot of power. Two, the plot was like a mystery novel with a touch of political conspiracy, which made this book an outright Crime novel, unlike Sovereign (Shardlake novel #3) which had a lot of political conspiracy and turned into a political thriller from being a mere murder mystery. And lastly, the period differs. Sir Hugh is walking when the English are fighting the Scots, the Pope still holds control over Edward I, unlike Matthew whose life saw a different type of anarchy in England, the Reform.

Personally I liked Satan’s Fire more, as I prefer a straight Mystery novel where the murder remains the main plot. The solving of the crime involves clues and twists, which this book had in abundance. And most important, and ironically this has nothing to do with crime, this book involved the Crusades which still remains one of the most favourite topic of History for me.


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Sovereign by C.J. Sansom
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Three things I fear when I start a book. A book which is not borrowed but bought from my own savings, a book which with these three points can spell “Yawanathon” for me and can literally throw me into financial ruin for investing in a worthless adventure. Those three points are,
1. The author’s proclamation of being a HUGE fan of P.D. James (God rest her soul in peace).
2. A book which is 660 pages long, with long paragraphs.
3. A blurb from Colin Dexter which speaks about the book’ other aspects, but doesn’t mention how good is the mystery.
And thus justifiably frightened and with an apprehensive attitude I started SOVERIEGN by C.J. Sansom, and within a first few chapters I found out that despite all the above three points being present I am starting to enjoy the book. And the book proved to be such a marvel that after a long time I broke my own rule “If a book is not finished within a week, then it’s too boring too finish..ever, so skip to the next book” and took 16 odd days to complete this marvellous piece of crime fiction which is set in the times of Henry VIII, the middle age Lothario.

This book is a revelation. How many protagonists do we come across who gets bullied, beaten and threatened by every bad guy in the town, including the King. This guy, Matthew Shardlake does. He is just a lawyer and he gets bullied and shaken by high ranking bada**, and like a normal human being he endures those insults instead of throwing caution to wind and challenging the lot, like some “fictional” protagonists with “fictional” abilities would do. When laughed and mocked at, due to his physical deformation, unlike some wise crack hero who uses wit to counter every remark, he silently suffers and at times vocally protests. He is shown to be a human, yes a clever one, but a human after all who feels sad, suffers when laughed at like most of us. Cudos to Sansom for creating such a character. And not to forget his assistant Jack Barak, a faithful companion who is outraged when his master is mocked, but gets angry when the same master questions his fiancé, but runs all over London just to save his master. Another very human character.

Lastly the plot, mashed with the historical atmosphere was something I lapped up like a hungry dog. Being a silent lover of history thrust into finance, I love to read these historical mysteries. I don’t complain if the historical part overshadows the mystery, but Sansom kept enough history, his descriptions of the reform, and King henry or the greed of Sir Richard Rich were very potent, never made it boring, and silently threw in a plot which is fast, which pits a man low in social strata against villains much higher in the pecking order, he exposes the man’s fears and the villain’s greed all within the framework of a tightly woven plot, and when the finishing pages starts arriving he unleashes twists after twists which is worthy of a standing ovation.

So, though I am sad of Dame Phyllis James death, I can never call myself a fan of her works. But, I am surely, from this day, counting myself as a fan of one of her fan, C.J. Sansom.


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Roman Blood by Steven Saylor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Gordianus, who is also called the Finder is called upon by Cicero, the famed Roman orator and lawyer to take up the historical case of the parricide of Sextus Roscius. Gordianus accepts the case and starts looking for the truth, immediately seeing that the seemingly simple case is not simple at all. Threatened and laid off the case, he still digs for the truth, as the book moves towards a great finish.
The main problem I face while reading a Historical Whodunnit is that many a times the History overshadows the Crime and its solution. This book was not written that way. Saylor kept enough amount of history to make keep the ambience intact, and the reader interested in the historical perspective, he even used actual Historical figures, but throughout the book never did I once forget the fact that ultimately I am reading a piece of crime fiction, set in Ancient times. Throughout the book Saylor maintained the tense atmosphere of a crime novel, where the protagonist searches for an elusive truth, while being physically in danger and the characters around him either adds to the puzzle or helps him solve the puzzle.
Gordianus came out as a normal man, without any extra ordinary straits like extreme unhygienic or mood swings like a cricket ball. He is a normal man, with normal tastes and attributes. Though for a Roman his attitude towards his slave was too human to be true. But I guess he was one of those EXCEPTIONS back then who saw slaves as humans too.
A definitely enjoyable piece of crime fiction. Will surely read the rest of the books as the time moves on.


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Murder In The Central Committee by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Maybe I am too dense, or maybe I don’t understand English. But, this book just didn’t work out for me. Cause out of the 224 odd pages in this book I had already spent around 150 without getting a single clue to the investigation, I didn’t have any clue as to the life of the murder victim. And I also didn’t have any clue regarding the style of narration used.

And on top of everything, long paragraphs on Communism, and longer discussions of food. Make no mistake, I am a foodie, and I love to hate Communism, but I wouldn’t want an overdose of either two in a crime novel, where the crime, the clues, the detection and every other thing related to Crime writing does not takes a backseat but is entirely absent. A bad bad experience.

Or else the translator got it all wrong!!!


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The Frozen Dead by Bernard Minier
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Once in a while I land myself with a book that helps me in reassuring myself that all is well with crime writing and THE FROZEN DEAD by Bernard Minier was one of those. All along I have maintained that what I look for most in a Mystery or a thriller is the plot. Most of the times my ratings depend upon the pace and the tightness of the plot, and added to those two very important aspect, I also look for twists. Not someone to shy away from a generous offering, I love my twists especially when they are strewn liberally all over the book.

Right from the beginning when a headless dead horse is found hanging, through the brutal murder of another man, right upto the end where he kept his last twist alive, Minier wrote a book that was pretty impossible to not to finish at one go. And boy did he almost turn this piece of crime writing into a horror novel. The use of the secluded landscape, the chilly weather, and the “madhouse” he created an atmosphere where I got goosebumps while reading. And I live in a tropical country. Not for a long time had I been so involved in a book I was reading. The last instance that comes to mind was a duo experience of BLUE HEAVEN by C.J. Box and another brilliant French effort IRENE from Pierre Lemaittre. And now this.

I guess the only aspect where Minier followed the well trodden path is while developing martin Servaz. He was divorced, grumpy, middle aged and overweight. A pretty standard character who solves an extraordinary crime. But, one this that did make Servaz a bit different from other fictional policemen was the fact that he felt frightened when the situation was frightening. He wasn’t made into a Superman with no fright and all gloom.

All in all a definite entry into my top Mysteries of all time. The pace of the plot, the twists, the atmosphere, the mad house and its inhabitants all made this book an experience to cherish.



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