Book Review: THE GOAT THIEF

Title: The Goat Thief
Author: Perumal Murugan
Translator: N Kalyan Raman
Publisher: Juggernaut Books
Pages: 240
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Goat Thief by Perumal Murugan takes a slice of life, the thinnest sliver of one, and illuminates it, and the revelation is dazzling.

The stories inevitably turn on the protagonists. The intensity and the relentlessness with which the characters find their situations changed for the worse is totally inexorable.

In The Well, we watch with disbelief as an innocent episode of swimming in a well, along with three children, aged 8-12, becomes dangerous for a man. 

This story sets the stage for the others, and we become mentally prepared to realise that we will learn to identify with the protagonists of Perumal Murugan’s stories only to watch them suffer, often for no fault of theirs. It is a reminder about how life, and society, often stacks the odds against us.

In The Wailing of the Toilet Bowl, a newly married woman overestimates the amount of rice she must cook for the day, and the leftovers end up in a vat filled with stale rice. The question of how to get rid of it torments her. Her husband pours the contents of the vat into the toilet bowl, and so begins her irrational fear of the never-satisfied hunger pangs of the toilet bowl.

In Musical Chairs, a husband and wife become obsessed with a chair they find in their new house. By and by, the couple find themselves driven apart by their desire for the special chair. The wife then prevails upon her husband to buy her a chair of her own, but he transfers his obsession to the new chair, and it too becomes a source of friction.

In The Night the Owls Stopped Crying, Raju, a night watchman, falls in love with the ghost of a rape victim who haunts the sprawling estate that he has been hired to guard. He thinks his suit is doing well, until the living begin to pose a hindrance to his dreams.

In An Unexpected Visitor, an old woman who lives alone, vainly hoping that Death will claim her, discovers a renewed burst of energy when her granddaughter and her husband ask her to look after their six-year-old son for a few days.

In Mirror of Innocence, a two-year-old girl wakes up in the middle of the night bawling and demanding a certain something and frustrating her parents and grandmother. There can be no peace or sleep until that thing is identified, discovered and given to her. Here, the author captured very well the frustration of parents when little children throw tantrums.

In The Goat Thief, Boopathy, the eponymous thief, tries to escape with a stolen goat under the cover of darkness. His efforts fail, and he loses the goat. When he tries to make a getaway, he finds himself chased by the villagers. Feeling completely beleaguered, he rushes madly into a coconut grove, only to find himself dangerously trapped.

In the starkly named Shit, we come to know of the narrator and his friends, all bachelors, residing in a large rented house. They live a good life, drinking when they want to. The star attraction of their drinking episodes is an attractive plastic tumbler, that one of them gets to drink from, in turns, while the others make do with steel tumblers. The house they live is enveloped in a dirty stench, caused by a rupture in the pipe  leading from the toilet to the septic tank. To repair the problem, the friends must pay a sweeper Rs 500, an amount that seems exorbitant, until the narrator, and we, realise the enormity of the sweeper’s efforts.

The story consists of dual stories about the tumbler and the shit, which go on parallelly, leaving us confused about how they could belong in the same story, until the author gets them to converge in a spectacular manner.

In Sanctuary, the narrator, a youth becomes so engrossed in the games he plays with little boys in a well, that he actually regresses to a child himself.

Muthu Pattar is The Man Who Could Not Sleep. The insomnia is a strange affliction for him, a hardworking old man who has always rested well after hard labour. The cause of the insomnia is a sudden spurt of jealousy he feels, and he resolves his problem in the only way he knows how.

The heroes and heroines of Murugan’s world are threatened in their own stories. The character swimming in the well, the newly married housewife all alone at home, they all find themselves consumed by their circumstances. 

And yet, even as they find themselves alone, one can sense their fortunes being guided by Murugan, who feels deeply for them in their predicament.

Most of the characters, both the leading ones as well as the secondary characters, are unnamed. The exceptions are Raju, the night watchman, Boopathy, the goat thief, and Muthu Pattar, the old man who cannot sleep. Even Paati and Kunju, the great-grandmother and the child, are a form of address and a nickname respectively.

The long paragraphs, most of which are over-a-page in size, invite us to immerse ourselves in the story. Like the protagonist in The Well, we jump in with jolly abandon only to find that it is not so easy to get out of it, to extricate ourselves from the clutches of the little tyrants. The stories, like the well, claim us.

There is a sentence in the first story, The Well, Like a ripe coconut detaching itself from a bunch and dropping to the ground, which describes how the protagonist jumps into the well, while the children are still arguing over who will be the first to disturb the well.

The significance of Murugan’s stories fall into our consciousness with exactly the same precision and delicacy.

(I received a free copy of this book for the purpose of this review from Juggernaut.)

Book Review: THE OTHER MAN

Title: The Other Man
Author: Shashank Kela
Publisher: Juggernaut
Pages: 208
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐








The Other Man by Shashank Kela is fiction that strikes such a realistic chord, it pains us with its intensity.

When the book begins, we see two men killed in an encounter killing. One of them, Shankar, born Roshan Ghandy, is a known Maoist, the other, a lawyer, Stephen Murmu, may or may not be, though he suffers the same fate. 

The scene of the encounter is Kakrana, state unknown, which functions as a kind of Every Place because the sort of injustice that takes place here is the kind that could fell people down anywhere.

Inspector Dayanidhi of the federal police agency is assigned to the case by his director. The official story is that the two prisoners were killed while they were trying to escape. But Daya is convinced that this is a deliberate killing, with political motivations.

His investigation is not welcomed either by the station officer responsible for the encounter, or the shadowy web of political and industrial characters whose financial interests are threatened by it. 

At the heart of the conspiracy is the mining company whose tentacles are spread wide through the land, touching people’s lives, and toying with them in equal measure.

It is ironic that the name Daya should be chosen for the protagonist who spends his time and energy diligently tracking down the truth behind the encounter killing. In real life, Daya Nayak was an encounter specialist, who was involved in over 80 encounter killings of members of the dreaded Mumbai underworld.

Here Daya is that rare commodity, an honest policeman who is at once realistic about real-life conditions and idealistic about his pursuit of justice. He is unpopular with his colleagues, self-effacing and a loner.

I liked Daya’s methods, how he succeeded in throwing his quarries off guard, the way he questioned people, the way he interpreted their answers, and his observations about the most random occurrences and events. It is not hard to see how well his background, his wide reading of Motaigne, Stendhal etc as well as of Tennyson, Robert Frost and Gerald Manley Hopkins have shaped his thinking. (If you can, do Google the Margaret poem by Hopkins, and interpret it in the context of Kakrana.)

The best part is that he does his job without any high notions about himself. When a character observes, “You take your job seriously,” he says, No more than the next man, I hope.

While Daya is a very significant character, the author also lets us into the lives of Shankar and Murmu, who we get to know posthumously through the accounts of those who knew them well.

Most of the important characters are unnamed, for instance, the station officer, who is referred to as the station officer throughout the story. But the author does give us the names of bit characters like Sudha K, Surab Singh M’ta, Sudhir Pathak etc.

The only part I didn’t like is the fact that the author did not give the antagonists a name. Perhaps it is deliberate, this understanding that names do not matter, that there are antagonists such as these in every scam and case afflicting our land.

The author writes from a knowledge and experience that comes of having worked as an activist in a trade union of Adivasi peasants in western Madhya Pradesh between 1994 and 2004. 

The wealth of his knowledge gives his book layers of authenticity and realism. The book is steeped in the stories of ordinary people affected and troubled equally by the Maoists as by the police and government machinery, their daily lives sad and miserable.

The writing is sparse, lean, economical. The dialogue crisp and crackling. It reminded me of the Pulitzer Prize winning pieces that whittle away the thin line between news and fiction.

The figures of speech were pointed and colourful. The word, encounter, fills Daya’s mouth with a metallic taste of ashes and aloes. When such accidents become too frequent, they remind him of a theatre of death with the props carelessly arranged.

Elsewhere, the author describes excavators as metal insects in a Martian landscape. He describes the patient grieving of the habitually downtrodden Murmu family as that stubborn tenacity which outlives anger or hope.

The author has reserved his most pithy observations for Daya. He says, For all our boasts of antiquity…we don’t like its remains: stone is quickly painted over, frescoes whitewashed, new shrines built to replace the old.

When it is not something that Daya says, it is something said of Daya: One forgets how dangerous an honest cop can be.

Elsewhere, It was his habit to gauge the amount of ‘influence’ that might be brought to bear upon an investigation should its direction prove unwelcome – much as an ox might gauge the weight of the load it is harnessed to pull.

To read this book is to imagine the scene playing out in your mind. Dry and sered, much like the arid landscape of an art film, where the truth isn’t pretty, and where the tortured reality never changes.

As readers, we learn of the conspiracy, the lies jostling with the truth, through the medium of the telephone conversations between the key persons. Daya is not privy to these revelations, of course, and so we watch as he comes to his own conclusions, struggling with theories that are plausible, but which he cannot prove.

The book ends, it seems, with no real closure. And yet that’s the extent of closure we are permitted. Those of us who live in India know how dangerously close to reality this is.

We get a sense of the futility of life, where people are killed for their beliefs, and where loyalties are bought and sold by the highest bidders.

It’s not often that I recommend a book that leaves me with a distinct sense of dissatisfaction. The Other Man, stark and blunt as it is, deserves a wider audience.



(I received a free copy of this book for the purpose of this review from Juggernaut.)

Book Review: EMPIRE

Title: Empire
Author: Devi Yesodharan
Publisher: Juggernaut Books
Pages: 300
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Empire by Devi Yesodharan is a skillful amalgamation of memories and dreams mixed with fiction and research into a not-so-well known era of ancient history. As a schoolgirl growing up in Bombay, the life and times of the Chola dynasty received no more than a mention in our history books. The author’s effort to bring this period to life is most welcome.

Anantha, the commander of the navy of the mighty Chola empire, wins an 11-year-old Greek girl, Aremis, as the spoils of battle.

From the beginning, she is groomed to be a warrior and archer. She receives training from Shrey, the best teacher. Years later, Aremis is an accomplished warrior. 

She misses her home and her people, and feels herself a stranger in this land. Despite spending years here, people look upon her as Yavani, the foreigner.

It is a time when rivalries are vicious and no soldier likes being bested by a woman. Even when Aremis wins the archery competition, the rewards are given to Rajivan, a competitor. Instead, Aremis is named King Rajendra’s bodyguard.

The King reinstates a woman as his Queen Amaya, a woman that everybody thought had been dead for eight years. Everybody accepts her as the queen. Only Anantha suspects her of deceit. He shares his suspicions with Aremis.

When the Cholas learn that the Srivijayans have been taking undue advantage of them in the trade against the Song dynasty of China, they decide to declare war against the Srivijayans.

Meanwhile, Mandakini, Anantha’s mistress, suffers from poisoning as a result of poppy consumption. Sent to apprehend the man who smuggles the opium, Aremis kills him in self defence. She is thrown out of the palace, no longer a throne guard.

At Anantha’s request, the King reinstates her into the war effort. As they head to war, some of the men take ill. When they land at an island looking for herbs, Aremis is brutally attacked by Rajivan and the liege men of the opium smuggler.

The book is written in the 3^rd person present tense point of view of Anantha and Aremis. In choosing Aremis and Anantha for the two voices, the author has chosen well. Both affect the King.

The author takes us into the past, to Nagapattinam in the 11^th century, when the Chola dynasty has its glory days. We see the essential nature of politics in the strategising, the politicking, the relationship between the king and his subjects and vassals, all seeking to further their own agendas.

I commend the author for her keen research about life, seafaring and the wars and battles then.

As the novel begins, we learn of the might and sweep of the Chola empire. As it plods on, we are not so sure. We realise the scale of the effort it takes to maintain the power, the lives destroyed.

We get an idea of the magnitude of the kingdom’s glory through many ways. The Vagnivara, the author tells us, was a ship big enough for 30 elephants and 200 men. Some of the details of the glory of those times are quite breathtaking. They give us an indication of the heights of glory which the dynasty had achieved.

The error emerges when some of us believe India’s glorious past was all glory and no stink.

The author herself gives us evidence of what wasn’t quite right. How dogs, the leather saddle etc were considered unclean, but the combination of priests and coins could make everything good again.

Not much has changed over 1000 years. War still excites the unscrupulous with its opportunity for profit. Twisted minds still prey on people through their faith.

I saw this part of the book as a critique on the people. In the person of Aremis, we see how, for a nation that speaks of tolerance, we are horribly racist and wary of foreigners.

The writing was beautiful, often rising to the level of poetry in many places, and drawing you in. It is sensual and evokes all the five senses. I could almost taste, smell and feel Nagapattinam.

Aremis speaks of her rootlessness, like seasickness on firm ground. Her memories do not run roots through the earth.

Rajivan is like those thick thorn bushes in the forest that bristle at nothing.

There are taverns that serve drinks that make you immortal at least for an evening.

The Cholas have a powerful navy, whose strength the sea tests with shipwrecks, dead sailors, fleets of invaders with outlandish dreams.

Some of the truths still hold true. Peace is an elaborate fiction that kings tell their people, and to preserve it soldiers must die in skirmishes in the dead of night, and fields must be cleared of their bodies before the jackals turn up.

How quickly it is that things that we once wanted we now feel only a distant pull for… How many things we fight for are like that? Yet we give up so much for our treasures, like the silkworm pulling the threat out of her core, weaving the silk and dying at the same time.

The truth needs time to wriggle itself out from where it’s hiding.

Anantha has the best reflections. Here they are:

He says, We never look too closely at the people we are used to seeing. It’s strangers that we examine from mole to scar, from the ends of their smiles to the slant of their accents, before we allow them into our lives.

The sword is kinder than the sea.

Elsewhere, he reflects that It is easier to build things than to keep them from collapsing. From the moment of creation, decay begins.

He says, We are a people brought up on stories of ugly monsters and handsome heroes. He also adds, The gods are like tiny tyrants, both unreasonably loving and cruel, holding people in thrall.

They still do.

While I appreciated the poetry of the prose, I couldn’t say the same about the plot. I found it loose, more like a series of sub-plots that didn’t feel as if they were part of a composite whole. Good writing alone can’t hold a  reader's interest forever.

Anantha’s worries regarding the new queen; Mandakini’s death from poisoning and the subsequent events, they all had a weak link. And the truth about the false queen didn’t come out at all. We receive no closure on that point.

Even the title, Empire seemed a loose fit.

The words on the cover, He is India’s mightiest king, She is his bodyguard, hint at some sort of a relationship between the two, which is belied through the course of the book. In reality, the book is more about Anantha and Aremis.

Also, the book blurb describes Aremis as 12 years old, while in the book, she is brought in at age 11.

In the beginning, Aremis begins a relationship with Nateshan, but at the insistence of Shrey, her guru, she ends it. Later, as a throne guard, she is required to deny her own femininity, condemned first as a warrior, and stripped of friends like Nateshan. She stands alone.

At this point, she begins a brief relationship with Kamakshi, one of the dancing girls. I couldn’t understand the motivation for Aremis’ relationship with Kamakshi – why do either of them allow it? Was it just to bring the element of bisexuality in? It seems sudden and forced.

In sum, I liked the writing, but the non-resolution of the weak links left me with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. 

(I received a free copy of this book for the purpose of this review from Juggernaut.)

Book Review: THE LIAR'S WEAVE

Title: The Liar's Weave
Author: Tashan Mehta
Publisher: Juggernaut Books
Pages: 330

Zahan Merchant is born in 1904 to a Parsi family in Bombay. In this alternate world, the lives of humans are written in the stars, and mapped and charted by powerful astrologers, In-Betweens, who can tell you the year in which you will die and the facts of your life, based on the date, time and place of your birth. In their words, Everything happens, as it should happen, because it has already happened.

But the astrologers are powerless to interpret Zahan’s future, for, it seems, that the gods erred this once and Zahan has been born without one, or more accurately, and confusingly as astrologer Narayan Tarachand discovers, with almost infinite futures.

Tarachand takes the problem to his In-between friends, Krishna and Svasa.

The error of the gods gives Zahan his power: he can alter the weave of the future with his lies, a talent he discovers at age 7. It is a secret that he shares only with older brother, Sorab.

But there is a catch. Sometimes it is a power he has, and sometimes, it’s a power that frightens him. For he cannot see the realities he creates for others. Knowing the truth nullifies the effect of the lie.

There is a forest, Vidroha (Hindi for protest, rebellion), deep in the heart of Bombay, which is home to the hatadaiva, the ill-fated. Here Yaatri, a nomad from the Banjara tribe; Liling, Chinese medicine woman; acrobat Tamarin and his wife, Jia, both from the circus, hold court, inspired by Niyat, half-man, half-legend. They give succour to other ill-fated, while yearning to break the stranglehold of fate.

Yaatri meets Zahan and his best friend, Porthos, both 16, and invites them into Vidroha, hoping Porthos will re-write their fate. Meanwhile, the Sapta Puri, the seven holy universities, are equally interested in Zahan and how he alters the weft and warp of life.

Already new realities are coming about. Fortunates are suffering; the ill-fated have flashes of luck. But can you interfere with reality without suffering the consequences?

Vidroha’s desire to change their destinies will destroy lives. And neither Zahan nor Tarachand, who uses Zahan’s power to his own advantage, will come out of this unscathed.

The novel integrates ancient Indian myths with Hindu mythology, creating characters and locales that are part-truth and part-fiction, interspersing the mundane with the cosmic. It shows us how the lives of human beings pan out, while the astrologers attempt to play god. These are lines for us, lives for them, Tarachand chides himself. And yet, as the omniscient narrator reminds us, No matter what the wisdom of the stars, human imagination is stronger.

As a premise, it is intriguing and frightening. In the wrong hands, a power like Zahan’s could wreck lives. Horoscopes and birth charts are one belief that Parsis take as seriously as Hindus. But in this world, it seems, that everyone is held captive to the birth chart.

The story is written in the present tense, in the third person PoV of the characters. Interspersed with the main narrative are excerpts from Tarachand’s book, The Perspective of an In-between.

The similes used in the writing are earthy. Beard like unspun cotton. The prose is evocative, stylized, not as ordinary people might speak. But this is a fantastic world, and so it feels right.

The novel is set in Hindu Colony, Parsi Colony and in Vidroha, besides Benares. The writing in Vidroha is rich and dense, decadent and lush, while that in the two residential colonies is almost genteel, sparse and succinct, in comparison.

The story is set against the backdrop of the struggle against the British for independence. Zahan initially wants to use his dancing tongue to guide the fate of his country. But the struggle for Independence is merely a placeholder. In this alternate world, the astrologers study individual lives; they will not study the fate of the country, the narrator tells us.

There are a few historical facts that come up. The fact that the British introduced the Criminal Tribes Act, a piece of legislation that threatened the diversity of India and pronounced Yaatri and his people, the Banjaras, and hundreds of other tribes criminal.

Beyond a few cursory mentions, the author tells us nothing about it. And that made me feel cheated. Why not just make it a story about a boy who can lie the truth into existence? Why bring the fate of a country into the mix, if you do not mean to take it to its just conclusion?

The names of the leading characters, Yaatri, Tamarin, Liling, Umaan were unreal, fictional, and yet they seemed relatable. Yaatri signifies the journey, Porthos is a character from The Three Musketeers, while Zahan is as Yaatri describes him, Zzzz-haan. Like a bee and an exhale.

The characters have their own compulsions. Porthos wants to know if he is hatadaiva. The others in Vidroha want their ill-fortune transformed.

Tarachand, whose future decrees that he could be Dagdhavasta, head of Sapta Puri, is bothered by the anomaly of Zahan. If the gods have missed him, what else have they missed? If the gods have intended him, what is the purpose of that intention?

The author, young as she is, has a firm grasp of the emotions of the characters, as they struggle in vain to live their lives. The bond between the two brothers, Zahan and Sorab, was poignant, and I felt for Zahan, and the loss of his relationship with Sorab.

The world is being made anew, with every word from a liar’s mouth.

The author treats us to the psychology of the lie. You cannot, absolutely cannot, break eye contact… You must believe your lie, with every ounce of fibre you possess. Love it, nurture it, trust it.

The best lies are the ones between two truths.

What is a lie but a fictional story? And here, stories are described as The currency of your soul.

The novel teases you, confuses you but you bide your time, for as the narrator has told you, Secrets have to ripen before they can be diced; mysteries brew before they clear.

My beloved St Xavier’s College features in this book. Beyond it, it was fascinating to read about Bombay, my favourite city. This city lost so much of its character when its spirit was quelled, and it was asked to keep mum.

Mum-bai.

Why is it always women who are asked to shut up?

I was sorry to see Zahan go, at the end of the book. There seemed so much more that would happen in his life. Surely the gods would not let him go his peaceful way.

What is that thing they say about a liar? 

Once a liar... always a liar.


(I received a free copy of this book from Juggernaut Books for the purpose of a fair and honest review.)

Book Review: THE DARK ROAD

Title: The Dark Road
Author: Mayur Didolkar
Publisher: Juggernaut Books
Pages: 540 (Read in App)

As a murder mystery, The Dark Road by Mayur Didolkar was a good trip but there were some glaring potholes that should have been filled.

The body of 23-year-old Sanjyot Pathak, trekker and marathoner, is found brutally murdered, soon after an act of sexual intercourse, while she is out camping in the forest. This is the second tragedy in the Pathak family. Their older daughter, Amruta, had run away from home years ago.

A powerful man, Siddharth Pandit, Sanjyot’s father’s friend and one-time employer, pulls strings and pays for the privilege of having Prasanna Killedar, a private eye, work on the case in an unofficial capacity.

Prasanna has a daughter, Ira, of the same age as Sanjyot, and she is determined to find the killer. But it’s not an easy case. The murderer has wiped the body free of all fingerprints.

The police are convinced the killer was known to Sanjyot. Was it Kunal Darekar, Sanjyot’s married, abusive boyfriend? Or Kunal’s jealous wife? And is the Pathak family hiding other secrets?

Read the book to find out.

The story is written in the first person PoV of Prasanna, and the third person PoVs of Pandit and Sanjyot. The accounts of Pandit and Sanjyot give us a sketchy idea of what might have happened, but we need Prasanna to make those connections for us.

First let me talk about what I liked about the book.

I liked the easy descriptions of Pune locations, the familiarity it inspired. The best thing about books set in a familiar location are the references – mutton biryani and faluda kulfi. Enough of reading books where characters eat scones and profiteroles, alienating us poor souls brought up on rasgullas and payasams.

The information about hiking gear and habits was fascinating. I was impressed with the nugget of information relating to how seasoned hikers pack their gear in the order in which they will need them. If only there was more of this. There were details about police procedures and the tedium of the investigation but it was handled well.

In Prasanna Killedar, the author has created a fantastic character. In her late 40s, retired as the assistant commissioner of Police, Prasanna is sharp and no-nonsense, a mix of motherly and badass.

The description of Prasanna comes to us through details interspersed through the story, for instance, the rapidly greying hair. These details help us to get to know, and like, Prasanna. The backstory of her as a single mother makes her real and vulnerable.

I found it interesting that Prasanna spoke to us. It seemed as if she were talking to me as a reader, a close confidante whose ear she had.

I enjoyed her voice, the blend of sarcasm and low tolerance for fools with which she speaks. At one point, she decides to charge Pandit a “sarcasm levy” and an “asshole surcharge”, over and above the already high fee.

The name Killedar too was an interesting choice for her. It literally means the one with the key, and by extension, the unlocker of mysteries.

The humour was unmistakably good.

When Prasanna deliberately walks out of a meeting with Pandit, he apologises for not meeting her in the morning, and Prasanna tells us, Like he had been a no-show at today’s meeting.

I laughed out when Pandit opened his Notebook, and Prasanna tells us that she opened hers, a real paper one.

I also liked the pop culture references strewn through. These included the reference to the musical series, Glee; Joker in The Dark Knight, and Prof Higgins and Eliza Doolittle, besides Bollywood films, Once Upon a Time in Mumbai and Hazaar Chaurasi ki Maa; the TV singing reality show Zee Sa Re Ga Ma etc.

The cover with its dark leafless trees and a lonely tent was sufficiently foreboding.

But there were also things that were unnecessary.

Daughter Ira, we are told, is a statistician. Not that her job helped her mother in any way. A wasted detail. Ira served no other purpose than to bring out Prasanna’s soft side, and to play a key role in the climactic sequence. If you’ve watched as many Bollywood films of the ’70s and the ’80s as I have, then you’ll know what I mean.

The drama brought about by Prasanna’s three friends, especially Sharmil and her affairs, was equally pointless and could have been avoided.

The book is a thriller, so even though the author makes a reference to Kunal’s ideological brainwashing that made men point weapons at their own, we can’t go too deep into why Kunal is the way he is.

But surely there should have been an explanation for why Sanjyot persisted in linking herself to Kunal when a powerful man like Pandit was sweet on her? Sanjyot’s motivation needed an explanation.

There were some issues that were referred to but not pursued. These included domestic violence, the rifts in a marriage, the fascination with married women and violent ideologies.

There were some errors that needed to go.

Prasanna tells Janhavi Danve, Sanjyot’s best friend, I’m sure you share our interest in bringing those responsible to the book. 'The' isn’t required in that sentence.

Elsewhere, But still, something in visiting a place so utterly and suddenly silenced by death moved me. That should read something about…

Ignorance is still a bliss sometimes. Bliss doesn’t need the crutch of the article, a.

And in Chapter 10, we get Sanjyot’s and Pandit’s third person viewpoint in a chapter with Prasanna’s PoV.

The reference to Shikha Sharma, CEO of ICICI, was weird. Shikha is the CEO of Axis Bank. If you are going to use a real name, you better get your facts right.

There was also a problem with the voice of the mysterious caller who fed information to Prasanna. But I can’t tell you more for fear of revealing a spoiler.

The biggest issue that prevented The Dark Road from being a smooth ride was the resolution of the mystery. It was awkward and too filmy, and undid the effect of all that had gone before.

Despite it all, I rooted for Prasanna. I sure hope that the author intends to create another book for her. It can’t be the end of The Dark Road for her.

(I read The Dark Road in the Juggernaut Books app)