Blood In The Paradise By Madhav MahidharThe aut...

Blood In The Paradise By Madhav Mahidhar
The author, Madhav Mahidhar, is an IT professional and also is kind enough to send me an autographed copy.  He is settled in Bangalore and this is his second novel, first in English.



















Genre and storyline

The Blood In The Paradise is the first murder mystery, I came across, written by an Indian author. And though I didn’t expect much from it, it turned out to be pretty awesome.
The story follows the life of Madhumitha, who tries to commit suicide by consuming cyanide but fails. And instead, her husband died by drinking water which contained cyanide. The cops suspect Madhumitha for being the culprit behind the murder along with her friend Anupriya, who is a radical feminist and always hated Vikas, Mahumitha’s husband, for being a violent and dominating husband.
Then we have all the elements of a murder mystery. We have court scenes, exaggerated media reports, political pressure on cops, masterminded criminals and what not.
Narration and thrill
The story is very modestly and aptly narrated. No unnecessary expressions and distractions are found in the book, which made it very good to go along.
The only factor that disappointed me was the revelation of the master plan. The novel is claimed to be A tale of impossible murder, and thus it was obvious to assume that something unexpected will turn up in the end. But the author has served the whole story without creating the aura of thrill or suspense. But, nevertheless, the disappointment is compensated by the way the story ends.
The end: No, it isn’t just another episode of CID
It would have been devastating if the story would have ended like every episode of CID, in which the detectives eventually catch the thieves and then they reveal their master plan after Daya slaps them.
Fortunately, it didn’t end that way. The author very well depicted the gray zone in crimes. The readers are left to conclude whether the criminals were right in doing what they did or whether the cops were right, following the judiciary system. I don’t know whether this was intended or not but I really liked the idea of giving emphasis on criminal’s perspective and not picturing cops and judiciary system as the ultimate standard or of righteousness.
Rating
I would give three and a half stars to the book. I restrained myself from giving it a better rating due to the disappointment of the giving away the suspense so easily.
I also would like to mention that the book, probably, is self-published and is a lot better than many books I’ve read which are traditionally published by big shot publishers. I hope the author gets the attentions he deserves.
This book was provided to me for reviewing by Cyclops literary Services. For information on the services they offer, check out their website.