Kalo Pordar Odike

Author – Sunil Gangopadhyay
Genre – Supernatural, Fantasy, Children's lit, Teen Lit.
Source - eBook
Rating - 2
Read - January 2016

What do you do when you revisit a book from your younger days, and find it a load of mumbo-jumbo hocus-pocus? You move on.

A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #2)

Author – Louise Penny
Genre – Detective, Crime, Quebec, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache
Source - Kindle
Rating - 4
Read - January 2016

Love you, Louise Penny, And you, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. But.. but..... Cool down. Deep breaths. Be Calm, even, if you insist.
Could you have done without that final, final twist, maybe? It took the story from being a bona fide masterpiece of detective fiction, to ... eh, how do I put it across as gently as I could .... the realm of 'that's-a-little-impossible'...
Okay, on to #3 of the series then.

Knots and Crosses (Inspector Rebus #1)

Author – Ian Rankin
Genre – Detective, Crime, Scotland
Source - Kindle
Rating - 3
Read - January 2016

I call myself a regular reader of detective fiction. It's what I read most often. Somehow though, I hadn't yet read Ian Rankin, who is one of the most well-known detective writers of the day and age. 

So yesterday, I was laid low by a bug - and since I had a couple of books of Rankin with me, I finished this, his first with the famous Inspector Rebus.

Great writing. Flawed, doomed characters - the chief protagonist, DS John Rebus, is a bloody brilliant creation. Great scenes. Pretty close to perfect as a starter to a series. 

However, as a detective mystery, standalone, this isn't exactly top-notch. 

Test 1: The mystery could not have been solved by anyone apart from Rebus. 

Test 2: Are there many things that the reader didn't know that were revealed to him/her late in the novel? Yes. 

Test 3: Was it (either) too easy (or) too vague? Yes. The latter. 

But here's the point. This wasn't a successful novel. It wasn't meant to be. It was the first novel in a series, and any reader who reads this book will be intrigued enough to read DS Rebus #2. This is the novel which builds up the character and the setting. 

And that's job well done. 

The Daughter of Time (Alan Grant #5)

Author – Josephine Tey

Genre – Detective, Crime, History

Source - Kindle

Rating - 5

Read - January 2016

What do you do when you find that a book you have not heard about at all is in the top (or nearabouts) in all of the lists of greatest detective / mystery books of all-time? You read it, of course.

So I did. 

The basic premise is fairly straightforward - Alan Grant, of the Scotland Yard, has had a broken leg. While recuperating, he is bored with the same old people, the same old food, the same old books et al. So he immerses himself in a historical mystery, of the 'Princes in the Tower' - and Richard III. Grant is not a historian by any stretch of the imagination - but he educated himself of the case, progressing from school books to quasi-historical tales, to proper historic tomes - and in the meantime, becomes friendly with a researcher, who does a good bit of the heavy lifting in terms of fact-checking. And the mystery unfolds.

It's nothing like anything I have read earlier. Thoroughly loved it. Completely worthy of all the adulation. 

And thank God for those best-of lists.

From Doon With Death (Chief Inspector Wexford #1)

Author – Ruth Rendell

Genre – Detective, Crime, fiction

Source - Kindle

Rating - 4

Read - December 2015

Some of you would know that I am doing a series with a newspaper on detective fiction. I am glad, therefore, that I am getting to revisit writers that I am fond of, or read ones that I had not earlier. Ruth Rendell was a master of the detective fiction genre, and I am familiar with her work, as I am with Chief Inspector Wexford, the main protagonist of many of her books. This, the first in the series, I had not read earlier. 
And I am glad to have done so now. An expert police procedural, this is a must-read for fans of the sub-genre. I am fond of these village-green police procedurals as I call them - they have in them both the comfort of the cozies, and the rootedness of the hardboiled (although little of the grit and the grime). This is excellent - solid plot, crisp storytelling, no pretension or unnecessary flourish, precise character development, a main protagonist you can root for, and a finish that's gentle but not without surprises. 
Dated? Well, it does indeed read like it was written in 1964 (its year of publication). But that does not hamper the story at all. Has aged quite well.

Will review in greater detail sometime in the future.

Dwitiyo Innings - er Por

দ্বিতীয় ইনিংসের পর 
Author – Mati Nandi

Genre – Fiction, Bengali

Source - Print

Rating - 4

Read - December 2015

A fine novella; based on test cricket what's more, which doesn't diminish at all on re-reading. Not a classic, not among his greatest, but still a fine piece. Mati Nandi is an expert novelist. I am glad to have re-discovered him.

Nayaker Prabesh o Prasthan

নায়কের প্রবেশ ও প্রস্থান 
Author – Mati Nandi

Genre – Fiction, Bengali

Source - Print

Rating - 5

Read - December 2015

This is an extraordinary piece of work. Remember that piece in 'Interpreter of Maladies', the first one? A Temporary Matter? Of how a quasi-estranged couple speak with each other in the middle of a week-long power-failure? This story, by Mati Nandi, reminded me of that. This is a story of how an entire small lane in Kolkata changes, or just comes to terms with itself, while a celebrity steps in, and then steps out of a building in that lane. This is quite extraordinary storytelling. Needs translation.