The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Re-incarnations of detectives in hands of a different author seldom succeeds, except in the case of Holmes, but that was possible maybe because the reincarnator was Sir Doyle himself. But, apart from that exception re-incarnations are meant to be not as successful as the original. The stories of limited success are limitless. Take James Bond, John Gradener or Jeffrey Deaver, the books still didn’t read like a Fleming Bond. Recently Asterix suffered the same fate. Yes, the return of our favourite heroes albeit does keep us hooked, but, at the end of the day neither those books nor The Monogram Murders left me with a satisfied smile.

First lets dissect the book purely as a crime thriller. On that point the book would score 3 or 3.5. I love twists, no doubt about that. But nothing tastes good when it is heaped upon a reader without any limit. The number of twists in this book got to me. By the end of the book they didn’t seem like twists at all. A definite case of trying too hard. The plot seemed a bit awkward. I cant put my finger on it, but somehow this was definitely not an EVIL UNDER THE SUN, not even a HICKORY DICKORY DOCK. The plot never slowed down, it was fast, but sometimes it got too fast to really comprehend what was going on. But at the end of the day, the twists of the double plot, and the solution at the end turned this book into a decent crime thriller. There were no pretensions, and though the solving of the crime was left to some circumstantial evidences, the ending was neat.

Now as far as the book goes as a Hercule Poirot novel, the book scores a big ZERO for me. I don’t know why, but this Poirot never felt like the Poirot I had read before. But it didn’t started that way, the man was getting into the Poirot shoes when suddenly the character became an impersonator instead of the real egg shaped Belgian. No, this man is definitely not the HP I knew. And somehow Catchpool, really didnt fit my idea of Hastings. I rather hoped that Hannah would bring back Hastings along with HP in this book.

Lastly, I respect Sophie Hannah. This was not an easy task. Not only did she have to churn out a twister but she also had to re-create the famous Hercule Poirot. Not every venture succeeds but a courageous move should be saluted. So, I salute Ms. Hannah for trying to bring back my favourite detective to me. Though I might not have enjoyed as much as I would have like to, I would still not lose hope. Maybe the second book, if there is any, will bring back the old Poirot I knew.


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Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was so long, with so many pages that mid way I was wondering that whether I will be able to finish this book, ever. And with the added pressure of both the culprit and the hero known, the urge to go on was dimming slowly but steadily. But, I finished it. And, I wont say phrases like “Thank God I finished or else I would have missed out soooo much”, coz there wasn’t any missing out to be even had I decided to skip the last 300 odd pages. The culprit would have remained the culprit, and the hero would have remained the hero. Nothing would have changed, except maybe I would have missed out on HOW the villain was bashed(literally) and how the heroes saved the day.

The Mercedes Man was 300 pages too long. The book didn’t have any fault as far as the plot goes, or the way in which the culprit is brought to justice. The fault lies in the fact that though being portrayed as a go-by-the-rulebook ex-detective Bill Hodges suddenly decides to play the lone crusader. Not stopping at that he manages to drag a 17 year old juvenile, and two relatives of a victim dragged into his fight. One of them gets blown up. Then again there was no reason to show how Hodges gets gooey with the lady who gets blown. Neither was that needed, nor was there any reason to kill of a character. But, as due to some of his twisted logic since Hodges had decided to make this fight personal, the death of Janelle, the involvement of Jerome suited the plot. But, they didn’t make sense.

This was my first Stephen King novel. And, though there were loopholes in the plot, I can really see why this author is considered as one of the best. If for nothing else I finished the book for his style of writing. Normally I just enjoy the plot of a novel, paying not much attention to the other details. But, the way King describes Holly and her troubles, or for that matter Hodges fight with his retirement (though both the situations have become much used themes in crime novels) kept me hooked.

This book is supposed to be a part of a trilogy featuring Hodges. I might not have been to upbeat after reading this instalment, but I can surely say I will pick up the next one the moment it comes up on the shelves.


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Sidetracked by Henning Mankell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My first brush with Mankell and Wallander wasn’t as exciting as I would have liked it to, or as I was lead to believe it would be. There was nothing wrong with the book; neither was there anything out of the world, or special about the book. It was just another Scandi crime thriller with some gore, a serial killer and a dose of “broken” police officer with a family and some personal troubles. The book wasn’t a dud, but to compare with Morse is a bit too much.

The problem began with the plot. I have serious issues with serial killers as focal point of a crime novel. Serial killers tend to be erratic, and they kill without any apparent motive, which in turn turns the book into a lengthy process of catch the guy with no motive to spice thing up in the finishing chapters. Though this wasn’t the case here, not at least in toto, but somehow by the end of the book I did feel that Mankell forgot to provide the reader with a motive as to why the four guys got killed. Yes, the motive is simple and the reader can sum it up on his own, but I guess it’s the duty of the writer to elucidate on that point. Bottom line, the book got over but we never got a motive.

And lastly the translation. I know it’s hard to capture the essence of a book when it’s getting translated, but is it too hard to try and not make the book sound like robot? Because that’s how the book sounded to me. Wooden and bland dialogues. Mankell took the way, where he shows us the culprit, and then takes us through a cat and mouse game where both the cat and the mouse is known to us. The tact was good, it was filled with suspense but the wooden words killed off any kind of suspense that was meant to be present.

Summing up, this is not a dud, as I had said earlier. But, neither is this a piece of art.


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Word of Honor by Nelson DeMille
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The last Demille book I had read was THE LION. And, I couldn’t wait to get it off my back. It was that bad. So, it was with great reluctance that I picked up the WORD OF HONOR. Reluctance because it was written by Demille, and THE LION was still chasing me. And, secondly the book was blurb-ed as a courtroom drama, with a Vietnam connection and it was 700 pages long. Long books with Nam connection makes me weary. They tend to go the Clichéd Street with half drunken genius protagonists and beautiful agents to rescue them from self destruction. And my single encounter with a John Grisham legal thriller didn’t turn out good.

But, within the first 50 pages my fears were laid to rest, as the book hit the gas right away. The plot never did slow down, and for a 700 page LONG book it’s a commendable job. Demille’s UP COUNTRY was long too and I loved it, but even that book had around 50 pages which could have been skipped without missing much on the plot. But, this book was free of any such “skip worthy” pages. The book was taut with little room for boredom. Even the courtroom scenes laced with legal jargon was fast and was written in a style where the legal jargon which important but without any thrill was alternated with highly charged witness dialogues which were an integral part of the plot and were “entertaining” to read. But, mostly what grabbed my attention was that the book never slowed down for once even. The whole thing just breezed past, without a moment to consider whether the book was getting too slow to be marked as “READ-LATER”.

And lastly the characters. Ben Tyson irritated me. With his chivalrous attitude, a BIG ego and confused relation with his wife was not someone to look up to. But that’s why this book was a success, because in reality if someone is faced with a similar situation that person would turn into a confused person irritating everyone. Marcy Tyson, was confused too and she too turned out to be a real character. The point is has these people been shown as someone who is taking the whole thing very sportingly, or “Who gives a F***” attitude the book would have seemed unreal though the characters might have been more tolerable, but the book would have turned into a fantasy. But the real hero of the book was Vincent Corva. With his attitude, his courtroom skills, and his ability in turning up with a key witness made him overshadow Ben Tyson in every department.

P.S. Had Tyson been a bit less egotistic and practical and signed the papers given to him by Chet Brown, this book could have been over in 100 odd pages. But, practical and sane men have never been the subject of a popular novel. Thanks to Ben Tyson’s ego we got to read a book that was highly entertaining.


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The Gone Dead Train: A Mystery by Lisa Turner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

What happens when two bluesmen die under mysterious circumstances, an ex-ball player dies under violent circumstances and we have a duo of an cop(recently kicked by his former beau) and a “Polize-Goddess” (recently out of a violent illicit relationship) to solve the case? We get The Gone Dead Train by Lisa Turner. A decent sophomore effort that won’t make you sit up and take notice but which won’t make you yawn and roll your eyes either.

This book succeeds with mediocre but solid marks. Though being filled with clichéd moments involving blues music, voodoo, a cult called Santeria and downfall of an famous ball player, and clichéd characterisation in the protagonists of Memphis Detectives Billy Able, who comes out as a semi-renegade officer who pokes his nose into a case which is not his, and who is suffering from his girlfriend’s decision to open a bakery in Atlanta; and lady cop Frankie Malone who is eager to get promoted but fails to notice that getting into a relation with a married colleague might just prove to be a hurdle in her dreams.

With these the author decided to threw in some Memphis ambience, a civil rights lawyer and a deep connection with the civil rights movement, and the assassination of Dr. King. All these moments might have just turned sour, but the lady writing the book saved it. She with her style of writing kept the book fast and full of suspense. Apart from some loose ends regarding the deaths of the Bluesmen, and the modus operandi of the killer, the book was surprisingly fast. And because of this sole reason the book passes the test, as it scored on pace. And a thriller with good pace is always OK with me, even if it is garnished with a few loose ends.


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The Wheelman by Duane Swierczynski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There is one perfect reason why I consider Agatha Christie as one of my favourite authors, because she was not pretentious and knew that what she wrote was crime fiction with the sole purpose of entertainment. Her books were not commentaries on racism, on human psychology or something
“much deeper than just a crime novel”. Then smartass writers started criticising Christie and started writing Crime fiction with a “Broader Perspective”, and managed to make the crime, twist and solution take a back seat to things like human psychology, atmosphere and every other stuff which made no contribution to the plot, pace or entertainment in any way whatsoever.

Duane S scores here, and scores a perfect 10. This book, The Wheelman, just as the name suggest is a pure crime fiction and nothing more. Just like a wheelman, whose sole aim is to get the men out into safety, Duane S made sure that this book’s main aim is to satisfy the reader, and present him with a purest form of crime fiction.

He was successful. He offered no commentary as to how a man could commit crime, what made him do it. No opinion and sympathies as to how human kind is getting scarier day by day. Or how corrupt the law has become. He merely states that humans can be dangerous, some of them rob banks and kill people, and the city of Philly has a darker side and there are corrupt police officers. To these facts he adds a huge….huge dollop of twist, right up to the last page. And adds a liberal sprinkling of pace and serves the reader with a work of crime fiction which deals with a crime, its outcome and the twists in between. And nothing more.

So, in my opinion if Duane S is the future of Crime writing, then the future is pretty safe. If not there is a twist in the future in the same way he twisted us readers in his book.




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The Darkest Room by Johan Theorin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

When I had read Echoes from the Dead, I was not really expecting a taut thriller, with a sad and believable protagonist and a plot which racing between two time periods and an unlikely outcome, a twist in the very last pages. It kept me hooked up to the last page. I made the mistake of underestimating the book, and I was properly thrilled with its stature. And, then I made the mistake of over estimating The Darkest Room, and was not really thrilled by the book and its contents. Make no mistake of the fact, Johan Theorin is a great writer, and I still consider him a personal favourite, but somehow I guess he tried a little too hard to make this book exotic and in the process ended up in writing a book which neither could become a complete thriller nor a complete family drama.

The publishers note in my edition said, “In this powerhouse of suspense–at once a crime novel and a searing family drama…” So, from a purely crime fiction point of view I was sorely disappointed. The plot was not fast, it wasn’t well weaved, the crime never looked like a crime until almost 65% of the book had gone by, the criminal had, at most a total of 5 paragraphs dedicated to him and at the end neither did we get to know what was his fate. There was a subplot which at the end was revealed to be connected to the crime, but the sub plot was way too long and could have been shortened without causing any harm to the main plot. But I never skipped pages, because Theorin after all is a good writer. The book looked like a family drama, sounded like a family drama, read like a family drama, with a bit of supernatural thrown in. As for a work of crime fiction, it was not worth it.

The characters unlike the first book failed to make any mark on me. The semi-protagonist of Tilda Daviddsson gets way to little space to be fully developed, Joakim Westin also comes out as unfinished. His situation brings out sympathy but that’s not the credit of the writer. Reading about him made me bored, but thinking about a man who lost his wife made me sad. A character from the first book makes a cameo appearance and does the Mycroft Holmes thing by pointing out the crime, but sadly that doesn’t salvage the book. Even the old-new connection which worked so well in the last book failed this time. It was boring, and never felt remotely connected to the main plot.

Final verdict, this book, as a work of crime fiction doesn’t stand up. But as far as reading it like a family drama goes, there might be some merit. But then again why would a reader read Johan Theorin to read a family drama???


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