"Killer in the shadows" by Amit Nangia. This book is published by Red ink publishers in Feb 2015 and has 128 pages.
Allahabad. A man is Found dead in a public urinal. Naina, a young beautiful divorce lawyer with a troubled past, tells police that she might have killed someone. Pronto. Inspector Abhay Pandey in action. He is a fun and female loving, easy going, skirt chasing, shameless, handsome and intelligent cop. Do you remember Salman Khan of Dabangg? Well that's exactly what he is.
Who was murdered? Did Naina kill anyone? Why is her past troubled? Who is threatening her?
Character of Abhay Pandey is of a typical macho rowdy U.P. cop who loves bowdy language. Naina is the most beautiful, enticingly shapely lawyer who has a partial amnesia and doesn't remember her childhood. The book shows instant chemistry between the two and sex on the third encounter.
The book is full of sexual connotations and implicit or explicit sex overtures. One does not understand whether Abhay's day job is that of a cop or of gigolo. These things take the attention away from the main story. More page space is allocated to amorous activities than the real plot.
There are limited number of characters in the story. Thus the suspects become evident very easily. Experienced readers bring down the list of suspects to four before reaching halfway. Then it's a matter of going through the story to reach the end.
This is a small book. Such a small murder mystery is bound to be short on build up and matter, and so it is. However it is written in film style and I could not help allocating the roles for the film. My cast included Salman, Priyanka, Sonu, Deepshikha and Mohan Agashe.
The book was published this year that is much after film Dabangg. Why did author decide to use the same cop for this story thereby making it unoriginal? It's also not clear why Naina leaves her career in Mumbai to come back to Allahabad? Author seems to have nothing new to offer.
Thankfully it's a small book.
Give it a miss.
