Two book reviews for BookChums

Almost two months back I received a mail from BookChums.com asking my interest in doing book reviews for them. Now how will I say no to an offer that will get me free books...! It took some time for them to start the program. By January first week I got the two books that I have to review by post. I am posting an excerpt of both the reviews and the link. Please have a look:

Review of Scammed: Confessions of a Confused Accountant:

Usually my primary consideration while selecting a book to read is the name of the author. The name of the author gives a lot about the book. Now when you have a book written by Anonymous, it is all for a toss. When I took Scammed: Confessions of a confused accountant to read I was walking on a non comfort zone because it was written by an anonymous person. I hoped it was as interesting as its title. And my verdict is that it delivers. Of course it is not a masterpiece, but an interesting read that will not tax the reader much. Like if you are free for a couple of hours on an afternoon, or you are on a long journey, you can depend on this novel to pass your time. 

Scammed is the story of Hitesh, an accountant with very minimal social skills, a boring job with no promotions on sight, ignored by ladies, harassed by his boss and rebuked by parents. When he audits an automobile company, he finds that it is on its way to dogs. The management of the company itself is eating the pies. Hitesh exposes them, embarrassing his boss and delighting the owner of the company, who is a ruffian named Venugopal Reddy. On personal terms, Hitesh gives some suggestions to Reddy regarding the business. Reddy asks him to be the CEO of the sinking ship. Hitesh charges in to start a new venture, Super cabs with the funding from Reddy and his friends. He tastes success due to his hard work and diligence and along the way achieves everything that was eluding him when he was a common accountant. But like all good things, Hitesh’s lucky run also ends abruptly thanks to the enemies he made on the way. Accused in a financial scam and left alone by all whom he thought close to him, he has to escape from the long hands of law. 

Read the full review here.

Review of The Newsroom Mafia:

The Newsroom Mafia is the second Indian novel that I read in recent times with the term newsroom in the title. The first one, also a debut novel written by a professional journalist centering on her life in newsroom, was a very readable novel. But the associations that come with the term newsroom is much more serious and demanding because the effect of media in the activities, decisions and opinions that we make in our life is large. Thus when someone attempts to tell a story about newspapers or media in general, the expectations become humungous, which was not met in the novel that I read before. For that reason I had an apprehension while taking The Newsroom Mafia by veteran journalist Oswald Pereira for reading. 

But the novel delivers and how! The Newsroom Mafia, as the name indicates is a story based on the intrusion of crime into fourth estate. What strikes the reader hard is the fact that news can be manipulated for devious ends. The story set in eighties is chilling real. The characters are multi layered and drawn from life. The motives, the master plans, the encounters every thing is life like. Oswald Pereira has used his three decades of experience masterfully in crafting this page turner. 

Read the full review here.