Book Review: The Babylon Plot by David Leadbeater

 Aided by the cold-blooded murderers Cassadaga and Ivana, Marduk, the self-proclaimed leader of Amori, a group that wants the demise of the church, escapes prison. Next on the agenda is revenge—on the Vatican and Joe Mason, the man responsible for his imprisonment. Joe Mason has to suspend all his other commitments when the Vatican hires his team to stop Marduk. What follows is a chase against time to prevent a maniac from bringing chaos and destruction to the world by a team that was almost killed once while attempting it.

The Babylon Plot is the upcoming fourth installment of the Joe Mason series, written by David Leadbeater. I haven't read the previous books in the series, and an advance copy of this one was provided by Avon Books through Netgalley in exchange for my feedback. The book continues the plot from its predecessors and pits an evil cult leader against a weathered ex-MI5 agent. Two sadistic assassins, whose only agenda is unleashing needless and aimless violence, further thicken and complicate the plot.

The best thing about The Babylon Plot is its relentless pacing. The story evolves at breakneck speed and never keeps the reader waiting for the next big action setpiece. The plot starts with Marduk's prison break in Italy and then shifts to England, where Mason and his team have set up their base. Soon the action shifts to Iraq, Paris, Monaco, and Switzerland, and the final showdown in the Vatican ensures that we have a truly globe-trotting thriller on our hands. The writer is successful in weaving a suspenseful thrill ride with this book.

It was only after finishing the novel that I realised a few issues it had. None of the characters in the novel show any kind of progressive arc. In a good story, some, if not all, of the major characters undergo certain events that transform them for good or bad. Sadly, nothing like that has happened here. I felt that our protagonists and antagonists were like runners in a race who only bothered to reach the end of the race once it started.Also, the motives and actions of the characters are predictable and repetitive. They behave the same way and have the same thoughts, as if on a loop, and these thoughts or actions end up without any substantial contribution to the main plot. The character of Daga,especially, had a lot of potential with his sadistic and non-committed behavior. His relationship with Ivana is also very interesting, and I would have liked the writer to explore it on a deeper level and not treat it like cheap erotica.

When the story has a team of characters with complex pasts, the dynamics between them leave a lot to explore. Each member could have a separate agenda, a different skillset, or an interesting redemptive arc where they contribute something new to the mission. The writer never went that way. The team members simply follow Mason for the entire plot and keep repeating the same activity throughout the novel. The fighters fight, the helpers help, and Sally, the trainee of the team, perpetually holds a firearm and stands waiting for an opening to enter the fight, which she never gets even in the climatic showdown. When they want to visit a convict inside a prison, all five go in. When they want to visit the handler of an assassin, all five go in. While attending an auction where the antagonists may be found, all five go in, like ducklings following their mother duck.

After finishing the book, when I went through the events again to review it, I realised that the contribution of Mason and his team to the resolution of the conflict was almost null. They fail miserably in all their attempts to track the conspirators, prevent them, or trap them. The final break through in the Vatican is also possible only because of the intervention of two nameless, military-trained men, and without them, the protagonist and his team would still be bumbling in the dark while dead bodies fall all around them.

The biggest skill of the writer is never letting you realise all these flaws while you are reading the book. He places enough cherries on top and on every side so that the reader picks the cherries and ignores everything else. The Babylon Plot can please the reader who is interested in spending a few hours basking in nail-biting thrills, action, violence, and some minor conspiracy theories and who doesn't mind half-baked characters or convenient plot devices.

Book Review: The Girl From Wudang by PJ Caldas

 Tigress, the girl from Wudang, reaches the USA with a goal to teach every woman the skills to defend themselves from male predators and takes up prize fighting to attract attention. There are two issues that affect her attempts: lightning attacks of cluster headaches and sudden flashes inside her brain that take her randomly to the past or future. When an AI company hires her for a project with the assurance that her headaches will be cured, she is all too happy to enlist. But she has on her shoulders the task of saving the world from some AI creatures, NPC monkeys from a video game, who have run amok and are creating havoc in the world by infiltrating every network.

The Girl From Wudang is the upcoming debut English novel by the Brazilian best-selling author PJ Caldas, who is also an advertising giant, an Emmy winner, and a martial artist. I received an advance review copy from the publisher, Tuttle Publishing, through Netgalley. This is a fantasy novel in which the writer has tried to blend Daoist (Taoist) philosophy, the discipline of Tai Chi, and the concepts of artificial intelligence. The book uses elements of martial arts and science fiction and is pretty violent and gritty in its style.

The story is told from the first-person perspective of Tigress, Yinyin Yang, or Claudia, as the titular girl prefers to call herself at various points in the plot. The plot presents her as an aggressive person with a clear and strong goal. It is her character's arc of transformation from an egotist and narrow-minded martial artist in search of fame and immortality to a person who realises that attaining the state of dao is to be selfless and protect others that forms its central plot. She, who is an embodiment of aggressive yang, attains balance only after finding her yin. Another interesting concept that is introduced in the book from Daoism is that of Wuwei, 'letting go' or 'doing nothing', which is essentially giving oneself into the natural course of the universe.

There are many descriptions of the philosophy of Daoism in the novel, which the author has fabulously merged with the central plot. I loved the fable of the two yang fighters that eventually resulted in the extermination of all of them. The final victor is the yin fighter who chose to practice Wuwei and decided not to interfere in the course of the balancing act of the universe. This fable is mirrored in the plot, and the philosophy of balance is established as its backbone.

The main style of martial art that is portrayed in the novel is Tai Chi, which I always thought of as a light form of exercise and not at all as a full-fledged fighting form. The author's background in martial arts has immensely helped in the writing of the parts describing fighting, which occupies a major part of the book. The passionate narration of fighting scenes offsets the issue of their geographical ambiguity.

The novel draws a parallel between Daoism and modern technology. The side of technology is unfortunately not balanced with that of philosophy. The science fiction elements—neurology and AI technology—are severely lacking when compared to the philosophical side. The descriptions are pretty basic and limited to the surface level only, and the stronger philosophical parts unfortunately totally drown them out.

Another issue that I have with the book is its reluctance to end the scenes in a satisfying way. Many situations succeed in hooking the reader but slowly lose steam. The climax part drags on and on and refuses to end until the action becomes totally chaotic, making me refuse to care anymore. Some crisp editing may probably help. I also had an issue with footnotes. I don't have issues with footnotes in non-fiction, but in fiction, they help only in deflating the tension. One exception that I can point out are the notes in Salman Rushdie's latest book, Victory City, in which it is also an inessential part of the story. I managed to ignore most of them in The Girl From Wudang, though the ones that I read are definitely illuminating.

The Girl From Wudang by Brazilian writer PJ Caldas is an interesting effort that tries to blend science fiction with martial arts action. Though it has its share of flaws, its winning grace is the solid way in which Daoist philosophy is used to tell the story of its protagonist. The book made me interested in reading more about Dao, and that itself is a great achievement for a book intended as popular fiction.

Book Review: Let Him In by William Friend

 "They’re more alike than you and I ever were. They’re like two halves of one whole. They’re two people and one person at once."

Alfie is struggling to cope with his wife's tragic death when his twin daughters claim that there is an unknown man in their room. When the invisible intruder becomes their best friend, Alfie decides to seek the help of Julia, his dead wife's twin sister, who is also a practising psychiatrist. Julia is unable to decide if the imaginary friend of the kids, whom they name Black Mamba, is an attempt by the kids to cope with their mother's death, Alfie's attempt to mask his guilt, or an apparition formed from her own troubled past involving her twin sister and their occultist parents. 

Let Him In is the debut novel of William Friend, which mixes gothic horror with psychological family drama. I received an advanced copy of the book that will be released in early October, through Netgalley and the publisher, Poisoned Pen Press, in exchange for honest feedback. Although the theme of the novel is familiar to me through numerous movies and novels with a similar pattern, the author masterfully builds a claustrophobic setting and tries to play with the reader's deepest fears. 

The novel explores the themes of loss, resultant grief, and attempts to cope with it. A recent death and how it affects the functioning of close family members form the narrative crux of it. The presence of two little children and the ordeals that they have to go through, add to the stake for the reader. The writer succeeds in never letting the reader decide the border between reality and imagination until the final page. The gothic setting of the mysterious and creepy Hart House, where the kids live with their father, adds to the horror element with a certain spine tingling suspense.

The novel is written in dual perspective, alternating between the first person narratives of Alfie and Julia. Though it slightly unsettled me in the first few chapters, where I was getting acquainted with the universe, it became enjoyable soon. It was even a relief towards the middle, when the suspense gets more intense and then a sudden shift in tone becomes a welcome relaxation. The writer very cleverly uses this technique towards the climax, when a crucial piece of information is skillfully hidden in plain sight, during one of the narrational shifts, and I realised it only after completing the book. It is also to experience such magic tricks from writers that we patiently read book after book. 

The greatest strength of the novel Let Him In by William Friend is the skillfully ambiguous narration that makes the reader struggle to place its genre until the climax. It is a suspense filled horror story about the psychology of personal loss that leaves scope for multiple interpretations.

Book Review: The Owl Cries by Hye-young Pyun

 A forest was a plurality and a totality. Meanwhile, he was always only him.

A lawyer comes into a small village bordering a huge forest in search of his missing brother, whom he believes worked as a ranger there. The current ranger, a recovering alcoholic with serious issues in his family, In-su Park, doesn't know who worked there before him. The shopkeepers in the village also claim not to have seen him. When death strikes unexpectedly, In-su Park is dragged into the mystery, and a struggle for survival ensues.

The Owl Cries is the upcoming English translation of a Korean novel by Hye-young Pyun, an ebook copy of which I received through Netgalley and Skyhorse Publishing in exchange for honest feedback. The book is to be published in October 2023 and is translated from Korean by Sora Kim-Russel. After fully reading the novel and trying to find details about the author on Google, I realised that this is the first Korean novel that I have read. I have watched many Korean movies and read a book by Korean-American journalist Euny Hong, titled The Birth of Korean Cool, but I have never read a full-fledged novel.

The novel can be termed a genre-defying attempt, as the author uses tropes that are overused in different genres to tell the story. It starts like an investigation mystery and soon evolves into a psychological thriller. In certain parts, she creates a Kafkaesque maze, especially with the progression of the character of In-su Park. The author finally decides to park her plot in ambiguous territory. I loved her choice, but most casual readers may not, because for the advancement of the story, she has explored multiple genres effectively, and many readers who like genre fiction would crave a satisfying ending.

The ambiguity of the plot extends to the characters of the novel too. Instead of using a central human character, around whom the entire plot is structured, the writer chooses the forest as the binding element that influences all human characters. The forest acquires a central identity and influences the greed, terror, anxiety, and addiction of humans. It is established very clearly when many characters who have every reason to run away from the village to any distant town to continue their lives, end up becoming subservient to the forces of the forest. 

Each character in the novel has a proper character arc, with enough background and motivation for their actions. But curiously, all of these arcs are left incomplete for the imaginative reader to fill up. The resulting dissatisfaction may prove to be a positive factor for motivated readers, but many readers who are in for a proper plot with a beginning and a proper ending will close this novel unsatisfied. This is a necessary pitfall of combining genre and literary fiction. 

The predominant theme of the novel is, I feel, loneliness. Each character in the novel is a lonely sole who tries to get out of it or deals with it in their own way. The writer tries to contrast the plurality of the forest with the singularity of human characters. The forest appears as a single entity, though it consists of numerous individual trees. Even when individual trees fall, it never affects the constitution of the forest. It imposes a kind of hypnotic terror on humans. To conquer the forest, three wood cutters are forced to work as a single unit. They become more than their single existence for a short time. But once they stop logging trees, they go back to their lonely lives. Control over the forest is the undefeated metaphoric victory that everyone in this novel aspires for and eventually fails to achieve.

The Owl Cries is a novel that may work if you are ready to go beyond the labels and brackets imposed by the publishing industry for their ease of doing business and if you are fine with ambiguity in your plots. It has some wonderfully written characters and a relentless, tense atmosphere that can put a chill in the reader's mind.

Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction by Sue Townsend

 Last month I happened to read The Diary of a Nobody, which is a comic novel written as the diary notes of an average middle-class officer in Victorian London. I never thought that I would be embarking on another British book with a similar theme so soon. Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction, written by Sue Townsend, is the sixth book in the series featuring Adrian Mole as the protagonist. I never read any other entries in the series and selected this one solely based on its name.

The year is 2002. Adrian Mole bought a new home while his parents sold theirs and moved to a pigsty with plans to convert it into a dwelling. He is working in the secondhand bookstore of the kindly Mr. Carlton-Hayes. His work on the new book is not working out well; he is slowly falling out of love with his manipulative and needy fiancee Mayflower, simultaneously starting an affair with her sister Daisy, and all the while getting himself submerged in the debt trap, performing a financial harakiri. He believes that Tony Blair cannot go wrong in his statements about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and will eventually locate them and prevent an impending war in Iraq, where his son Glenn is stationed on war duty.

The book is a hilarious take on the events in the UK when the government decides to follow the US on an invasion of Iraq, citing the presence of WMD, and is seen through the eyes of an average British man struggling to keep his life together. What strikes me about the character of Adrian Mole is his naivety, due to which he is manipulated and pushed over by everyone. The whole book is narrated from his viewpoint, through his diary entries and his incredible and unintentionally offensive letters to several celebrities. We, as readers, become totally aware of his misreading of every situation that he is involved with. Many times, it provides the reader with the guilty fascination of watching a video of a blind man walking unawares towards a gutter.

Metaphorically, the plight of Adrian Mole can be seen as that of the public in the UK during the Iraq situation. Manipulated through deceit and misinformation by its stronger 'ally' into a situation that could only cause more difficulties during the already dire financial troubles, they blindly bumbled into a Quixotic conflict with demons that existed only in their imagination. It is the subplot that involves his son and his friend performing guard duty in a war-torn Iraq that wrenches the heart of the reader and provides the emotional backbone to a plot that borders on absurd humour most of the time.

The book is populated by the most interesting and colourful characters that I have read about in recent times. Nigel, the friend of Adrian, who becomes blind due to diabetes, is inspired by the author's own plight, where she became partially blind and had to take her husband's help to write the book. My favourite character other than Adrian is his initial lover and fiancee, Mayflower, who manipulates him into an engagement even after he makes it clear of his disinterest in her. Adrian's more practical friends and his eccentric parents are also great characters who make the novel absorbing.

After reading this novel, I feel that the protagonist buying a house is a great way to start a story. It begins with a definite change in routine, a strangeness in situations, and a slight alienation that can be exploited to add drama and create an expected versus reality situation. Along with The Diary of a Nobody, I saw this device in the novel About People by Juli Zeh too. In this novel, buying a new house begins the financial unwinding of Adrian Mole and most of his misfortunes.

But through my reveals of the plot points, please don't estimate that this is a dreary and depressing tale. On the contrary, the novel Adrian Mole and The Weapons of Mass Destruction has its moments of feel-good joy and enough warmth and empathy to make it a delightful comedy.

Book Review: A Man Of Two Faces by Viet Thanh Nguyen

It was in 2017 that I read The Sympathizer, the Pulitzer-winning debut novel of Viet Thanh Nguyen. It was quite a different experience for me because, though I've read and watched a lot about the Vietnam War, it was the first time I could read about it from a Vietnamese perspective. Even the movies that portray antiwar sentiments do so from an American viewpoint and certainly feel inadequate. We are also never told about the situation in Vietnam after the War, at least in the fictional depictions. The Sympathiser gave a lot of information through its protagonist, who is a Southern Vietnamese soldier who fought with Americans, though he is also a Communist spy. The story is about the duality that he experiences.

So when I found out that the upcoming memoir of Viet Thanh Nguyen is titled A Man of Two Faces, I knew that it would definitely connect me to his novel. I received an advance reading copy of the book through Netgalley from the publisher, Grove Atlantic. The writer's parents fled South Vietnam along with the two kids, leaving behind an adopted daughter. They settled in the US, trying to live the American Dream while suffering to ensure that their kids prosper. America, in turn, ensured that the refugees stayed as refugees and the immigrants stayed as immigrants, especially when they were nonwhite, never allowing assimilation into the mainstream.

'History performs your caesarean, as it does for all refugees to America™, delivering you as that mythological subject, the amnesiac, rootless, synthetic New American.'

A Man of Two Faces is a very different kind of memoir. It is not just about the life of the author and what he remembers of it. It is more about what he never knew and what he forgot on his journey. It is not just rememberance; it is about memories that are altered or obliterated. Due to this, we are not provided with a chronology of events in his life as he remembers them. We get a scattered bunch of remembered and forgotten happenings. Or, as the author likes to call the rewinding of these fragments, 're membering'. We get insights on how a refugee lives, behaves, sustains, loves, and eventually dies. We see desperate attempts to get out of being refugees and immigrants, but the whirlpool pushes them all back in. We see how the ever-elusive American Dream works as that whirlpool.

One important technique that Nguyen effectively uses in The Sympathizer is his playing around with the narrative voice. Initially, the narrator uses the first-person singular to tell his tale, but by the end, the narration is done in the first-person plural. I become We. In this memoir, he uses a similar device when the first two parts of the book are narrated in second person and the final part in first person. As the title suggests, the author finds it easy to bifurcate himself to tell his story. He writes whatever he finds difficult to express in the second person. The reader also finds this distance from the narrator to the narrated easy to deal with, with the narration being a sharp criticism of history, society, and a nation.

You. And me. Such an odd couple.
The only way I have been able to write about myself is through writing about you. You are me, but seen from a slight distance, or the greatest distance, which is the space between one and one’s self.

The format of the book is also innovative. The writer plays around with spacing, margins, and alignment to give a lyrical look to the text. The quotes (and there are a lot of them) are aligned towards the right side of the page. Sometimes we find geometric shapes on pages made using words. We find some words blacked out, and in time, we find out which word they are meant to be. All these are not just aesthetic additions. It influences our inferences about the content of the book.

The writer documents his incisive take on the refugee experience and how the attitude towards refugees creates a duality inside them. They become good refugees or bad refugees as and when the host nation needs them to be. We find out how the writer encounters disdain for his culture and lifestyle through movies, literature, and even academia. We observe the subtlety with which they are made to subjugate to an idea of collectivity that forces them to surrender their culture and identity for the sake of the American Dream and then be denied the opportunity to achieve it.

More than the events in his life, Nguyen elaborates on the experiences of his parents as refugees, especially his mother's. May be because they tried to pave the path of their children's lives to success, and they never wanted their children to suffer as they did. We especially find a great character study of his mother, who, according to him, is a unique specimen of the refugee experience but at the same time a very common one when seen from another perspective.

The book elucidates how the influx of refugees fleeing from war, which the colonialist nations have themselves taken part in and, in most cases, begun, is used by the colonisers to celebrate their vain self-importance. These refugees and immigrants are used for cheap labour and are demonised when they claim their share in the power structure. But Nguyen also exposes the difference in treatment given to white and nonwhite refugees by giving examples of the Irish and the Germans. They were able to join the mainstream and find acceptance, while nonwhite races are still finding themselves victims of racial bias.

A Man of Two Faces is a stinging criticism of the colonial style of functioning in the USA. Its deep analysis of racial hierarchy, its moving depiction of being a refugee, its sharp wit and sarcasm, and its high literary value make it a must-read.

Book Review: Worst Knights Ever by Dane Hanson

 It's 2001. A fire-spitting, man-eating dragon is mysteriously loose in London. The Queen wants to contain the hazard before Christmas. With most of the British defence forces stationed overseas, she has only one traditional line of defence remaining: her trusted Knights. But the current crop of knights are all celebrities, most of them old men who have never boarded a horse in their glamorous lives, let alone charged into a battlefield. But the Queen's appeal finds four volunteers ready and raring to go: Sir Sean Connery, Sir Michael Caine, Sir Anthony Hopkins, and Sir Elton John. Along with Spielberg, who volunteers to film the whole action, and three squires desperate for knighthood, they prepare to defend England from the claws of the dragon.

As is evident from the above synopsis, Worst Knights Ever is an upcoming comedy novel written by Dane Hanson based on an old sketch developed by Jimmy Paulsen and Dane Hanson. The idea was to develop it into a Hollywood movie where actual celebrities portray satirised, fictional versions of themselves, which was a novel idea back then. It didn't realise Sean Connery refused to participate. Though several alternate versions were planned, none of them worked out. Then Henson decided to release it as a novel. Netgalley and the publisher provided me with an advance reading copy of the novel that is to be published by August's end in exchange for my feedback.

The book is hilariously written and puts forward an irreverent take on British royalty and celebrity culture. It is a bouquet of different kinds of humour hurled incessantly at the reader, in no particular order. You find a long line of black humour, slapstick, puns, potty jokes, and innuendo thrown at you. Fortunately, most of them stick, and that works in favour of the book. When revered figures like the Queen, the Prime Minister, and celebrities possessing a weighty public image like Anthony Hopkins and Sean Connery mouth these jokes and behave in a generally atrocious manner, it makes for entertaining reading.

The best thing about the book is this display of renowned English wit, no holds barred and self-deprecating, in all its glory. It reminds you of Monty Python sketches, but with a little less depth and a lot less polish. The literature has nothing much to write about. It's more like the script of a sketch, with a plot that functions like a bare thread to hang the jokes on. The intention of the book is just to elicit laughs, a bit of shock, and a surface-level look into celebrity culture, which it fabulously manages to attain.

Kannur by Ullekh N. P.: An Insider's View Into Revenge Politics

In Kannur’s spiral of political violence, the perpetrators are indistinguishable from the victims amid the propaganda war between the warring political entities bent on levelling scores.

When it was decided that the theme for our book club discussion for August was 'revenge', I immediately knew which book to pick for reading. Kannur: Inside India's Biggest Revenge Politics, written by Ullekh N. P., is important to me for personal reasons. I am from Kannur and have firsthand experience of the vicious cycle of revenge politics. Inside Kannur, when I said my home was at Pattiam, I could feel a sharp look from others. Anywhere inside Kerala, when I told them I was from Kannur, they gave me the same look. The writer Ullekh is also from Pattiam and happens to be the son of a very famous politician and Member of Parliament, Pattiam Gopalan, who is one of the Communist leaders responsible for making the village a Party stronghold. So for me, reading this book is essentially a part of my inquiry into my own past.

I was born in a small maternity clinic in Thalassery (which was later turned into a Lower Primary school), and I was fortunate enough to get educated in the same room into which I was born. I remember my parents recounting those days of terror when CPM and RSS were at loggerheads with each other and every day one member of either party was killed off as revenge for the killing of the other. The killings were reported like football scores in newspapers, and each party murdered desperately for that elusive equaliser.

The place I was brought up, Pattiam, a quaint village ten kilometres from Thalassery, was one of the epicentres. We were secure to some extent because we lived inside a fortification, where the appearance of a stranger begot a suspicious look and strict inquiries. Murders occurred in many places around us: Panoor, Kathirur, Kuthuparamba, Mattannur, Thillankeri, and so on. After a murder, every man in the village who was politically affiliated absconded for days.

It is with this background that I started reading Ullekh's book about the revenge killings of Kannur. It is easy to dilute such an attempt from the son of an affluent political leader as part of the propaganda war that tries to vindicate the opponents as the sole antagonists. To his credit, the writer has done a great job of placing the blame where it is due—to every political party and leader involved, to a concessionist police force, and to governmental inaction. I would prefer to extend the blame also to the media, which loves sensationalism and trivialization of core issues, and to the political strategy that denies youngsters in Kannur any scope for developing their talent or providing proper employment in the district.

The book does an incredible job of chronicling the history of political unrest in Kannur, listing the reasons that may have made the district so conducive to violence, and also providing a few good solutions that could curb the proliferation of brutality to some extent and replace the unrest among youth with creative outlets. I could see in these pages someone who genuinely loves his roots and is as pained at the notoriety they have achieved over the years as I am. It is evident that he is aware of the developmental scope of Kannur, with its beautiful coastline and green mountains, its immensely bright and talented youngsters who could be a formidable work force with enough creative opportunities, and its rich cultural antiquity.

But simultaneously, an unnatural struggle to move away from the proximity of an ideology that he was brought up with is also evident in his writing. It makes him incapable of any deep analysis of the phenomenon of cyclic violence. What we get in this book is a surface-level look at the history and sociology of the region. It may be worthwhile for an outsider, but all an insider receives is an underwhelming sense of familiarity. The book tries so hard to be nonjudgmental that it becomes jarring to read sometimes. For example, if I could get a rupee for every time the word 'alleged' appeared in the book, I could get a sumptuous dinner in a luxurious restaurant (after all, this is a small book of just 170 pages).

At the same time, the author makes some glaring omissions in his chronology that skew it in favour of the ideology with which he was brought up. For example, when he mentions that the RSS had issues with CPM and also with other outfits like IUML and PFI, he conveniently ignores the long and violent skirmishes that CPM had with NDF and with IUML in Nadapuram, a border town in Kozhikode district, just 20 kilometres from Thalassery. Somewhere else, he mentions RSS and PFI blaming CPM for murders that they committed against one another, but is silent about instances where CPM also did the same when even non-political murders were blamed on RSS. Who can forget the mischievous intent of using an Innova with a label of Islamic text pasted on it for the operation in Onchiyam, in which TP was killed?

But after reading the book in its entirety, I still feel that these instances are mere Freudian omissions by the author. After all, I am perfectly aware of the ideological tentacles that bind anyone born in Kannur and how Herculean an effort is needed to come out of them. With all its shortcomings, this book is an essential read to become aware of the pitfalls that steadfast adherence to ideologies can land a society in.

Book Review: Falling In And Out by Nishant Prakash

 Neil falls in love with his classmate Paakhi, but so does his close friend Waheed, whose love is not reciprocated. The son of an abusive and dominant father, Waheed is resentful as life never realises his ambitions and he has to perpetually stay behind the shadows of Neil. Ultimately, this discontentment results in Waheed killing Neil, which thus starts a cycle of trial and error for a better outcome that transcends the barriers of time and space.

Falling In And Out by Nishant Prakash is a novel that explores the possibilities of second chances. It reminds you of movies like Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow. If there is a possibility to go back in time and live all over again, aware of all the good and bad experiences of the previous life, what will someone do? Will such a chance yield better results? Are the choices that we never make the ones that hold the key to happiness?

I cannot answer any of these questions because I am not equipped with the power to calculate the probabilities of all the variables that life throws at me, aligning them for the best possible outcomes. But I can certainly claim one thing: if the author of this book gets a chance to go back in time, he should rewrite this novel down to two hundred pages. That will make it far better and more engrossing than the present version.

Nishant Prakash is a competent storyteller, as evident from this ambitious genre-mixing attempt that is part romance, part psychological drama, and part science fiction. My issue is that he is unrestrained. There is a lot of flab in this novel: characters, passages, and conversations that never make any impact from a larger perspective; long descriptions of historical events and politics that refuse to influence the plot in any manner; and opinion pieces that never connect. More than Waheed, it is this unwanted bulk that works as the novel's antagonist. Otherwise, why should he bring in Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh, or Modi for a novel and never bother to portray the effects of political changes in its plot?

That said, the three main characters of the novel, Neil, Paakhi, and Waheed, are portrayed very convincingly. All three crave love and acceptance. It is their actions or inactions when they are denied these that carry the plot forward. The psychological impact of these characters on the plot is the saving grace of the novel. The science fiction elements also bring a welcome change from the mundane romance.

Book Review: About People by Juli Zeh

 Outside there’s a pandemic, inside there’s unemployment, on the other side of the wall there’s a Nazi neighbour with glioblastoma. Everything’s fine.

Dora is tired of all the strict stay-at-home rules during the COVID lockdown and the stricter rules imposed by her climate activist journalist boyfriend. She decides to flee Berlin with her dog to Bracken, a countryside village, by buying a dilapidated house. But she is terrified to find that her neighbour is the village Nazi and that she is surrounded by right-wingers. What she eventually undergoes is a life-altering, paradigm-shifting transformation, and Dora is forced to question all her biases, her fears, and her prejudices.

About People was originally a German bestseller written by Juli Zeh and is now translated to English by Alta L. Price. Netgalley and the publisher, World Editions, graciously provided me with an advance copy of the book that is scheduled for an October 2023 release in anticipation of my honest feedback. Its title is Über Menschen in German and is set during the period of the first Corona lockdown, when everybody—the governments, the public, politicians, and health workers—panicked. It was the time when human nature, with its ugliest and prettiest sides, was put to the test against all the ideologies, biases, and fears of others. The novel tells such a story.

The novel paints a realistic picture of angst among the normal public living in cities during the informational overcrowding of COVID updates. Conspiracy theories and fears added fuel to the panic. But it also shows how people who are away from the effects of the media circus and who carry on with everyday life are untainted by this. The contrast between Berlin and Bracken is also a cultural divide that Dora has to cross if she wants to survive.

About People is a deeply personal narrative that explores the effect of fissures rapidly developing among people along ideological, political, racial, or communal lines. It is a document about how these biases and prejudices are never addressed and, over time, cause total disengagement between different sections. Its beauty lies in stressing the need for engagement on a humanitarian level even when the other person is an ideological or political 'other'. 

The novel is narrated in third person, though it follows the thoughts and actions of its protagonist, who is confused by the fish out of water situation. The novel deals with a dark and serious subject, though there is enough humour and warmth to qualify it as a feel-good novel. It can also be termed a coming of age novel (though the protagonist is approaching middle age) because it is also about a person who is protected inside an ideological fortress, enters the world, learns to deal with conflicts, and realises the real meaning of living.

It contrasts two of the protagonist's preferences—one being her boyfriend, Robert, who has a more similar background to her. He is polished, knowledgeable, and someone with whom she was able to talk for hours. Over a period of time, he gets obsessed with ideologies and demands total submission to them. Even when it can be argued that his views are totally veracious, it leads to Dora getting her personal freedom restricted. On the other side are the Goths, the village nazis, the brutes, the racists, and the 'other'. He is rough and impulsive, unclean, and foul-mouthed. But, in his own manner, he demonstrates that it is still possible to have meaningful engagement, which need not be all about agreement.

The question that lingered for a long time in my mind after closing the book was this: who is the real Nazi among them?

... politics was yet another filter ensuring your social life led you to encounter fewer and fewer mentalities that didn’t mirror your own.

Book Review: The Belgrade Conspiracy by Jason Kasper

 

".... It matters not who sends us—the team is what matters. That is the only thing that does, in this chaos."

Shadow Strike is a team of five special operatives who do the dirty work for the CIA. Led by the former mercenary David Rivers, their job is to assassinate the entities that pose security risks to their country. This time they are in Belgrade, Serbia, to locate and annihilate Sidorov, a powerful Russian arms dealer, in possibly their most simple and straight-forward mission. But soon chaos reigns when one of them is shot and their handler is murdered. Hunted by the local mafia, police, and mercenaries who work for an international kingpin, the only way for the outnumbered gang to survive the onslaught lies in working together as a team and fighting back.

The Belgrade Conspiracy is a return to familiar territory for me. For some time, I was only reading literary fiction and non-fiction books, and the plot of this book about arms deals, international espionage, and mercenaries was like eating my comfort food after a long gap. This is the kind of book written by Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, and Frederick Forsyth that I used to consume non-stop some years ago.

The author, Jason Kasper, used to be a veteran in the US Army with combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. He makes use of this background effectively in the novel. The Belgrade Conspiracy is his sixth novel in the Shadow Strike series and the first one that I read. I received an advanced ebook copy through Netgalley and its publisher, Severn River, in exchange for honest feedback.

The book starts by plunging us directly into the middle of action when David and his team ambush a safe house of Serbian mafia members and wipe them all out in a tactical move. Throughout the course of the book, the writer refuses to let us out of the frame of mind set by this opening. He takes care not to let a moment of relief escape in between the pages and progressively tightens the seemingly insurmountable obstacles that his protagonist has to overcome to accomplish his mission. The action is very violent and bloody, with too many shots being fired and a huge body count.

One great asset of Kasper's story-telling is the clarity of it all. Unlike many other novels, you are able to properly envision all the details of the action in full glory. I have never been so coherent about the geography of shootouts in a novel. The strategies, armaments, and roles of each team member are pretty lucid and play out in our minds like a good action movie while reading the book. Those readers who are crazy about weaponry will love the detailed descriptions of different arms portrayed in the novel.

I've never read another novel that makes its reader beg for exposition. The writer has planned out the action in such a way that for most of the novel, we are clueless about the final target of the mission. We are served a few bits and pieces along the way, and that only serves to build up the curiosity element. For this reason, when the inevitable exposition dump hits us, we never feel bogged down by it like in many other such thrillers.

Other than its action, the novel focuses on the camaraderie between the five members and their Serbian guide. Though we never get a character sketch of any of them at the outset (maybe already done in the previous books), we should be able to stitch it together along the way. Even though the writer attempts only broad caricatures through the sparse description, their friendly banter and acts of support towards each other make it possible. The willingness of everyone in the team to always go the extra mile for the other one makes them overcome even insurmountable obstacles on their way.

The lack of a good antagonist is one area where the book falters a bit. Major antagonists just appear with only a name, and we never find out anything about them. Most of the opponents end up being canon fodder for the guns of the Shadow Strike Force and for the plot. Another issue that I faced while reading the novel was the sudden change of point of view. Some portions are narrated from the first-person POV of David, and other parts employ a third-person narrative. In one crucial part of the plot, it makes sense to use such a gimmick, though from a larger perspective, it doesn't bring anything substantial to the table as far as the reading experience is concerned.

The Belgrade Conspiracy by Jason Kasper will definitely appeal to readers who love to read tautly composed action thrillers. When you come across a sentence about someone shooting another, and if it makes you enquire about the make of the gun, its range, and the calibre of the bullet, this book is for you.