One Arranged Murder : a review!

Book: One Arranged Murder

Author : Chetan Bhagat

Publisher : Westland books, Seatle

MRP: 225

Pages : 303

I have always been a die hard fan of Chetan Bhagat since he wrote "Five point someone"."Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested" as said by Mr. Bacon, I remember that, I have always chewed and well digested all the books written by Mr. Bhagat ." One arranged murder" is his eighth down the line!

When I purchased this book from amazon I had vowed myself that I'll read this book after sometime, because I knew that once I start reading, I cannot focus on any other thing in my life untill I finish it. Yes, I had always found C.B. books unputdownable and mostly finished them reading in one seating only Though I liked them all, but in spite of that My personal favourites are:- "3 mistakes of my Life", " Half Girlfriend", "Two states", "Room no. 105 "and this one ofcourse!

From "Room no. 105" Mr. Bhagat has started writing on Murder mysteries.. which are my all time favourites! This book seems to be in sequence to the earlier one.

In "Room no. 105" the mystery was well spun but somehow I felt that who dunnit was a bit obvious and I could understand who the prospective murderer would be from the earlier chapters itself. But in this book, Mr. Bhagat could maintain the suspense very aptly until the end and that is not all, when you start thinking that the case is solved and all lived happily ever after-- you suddenly get an unexpected twist of events! That is probably the sign of a successful crime thriller writer who is never short of giving surprises after surprises! And here in this book, I would say that Mr Bhagat has dealt the subject more maturely than his first book. Hope some more nice mysteries are on the way!

I had also been a great fan of Mr. Bhagat's narrative style-- sometimes witty, sometimes humorous but never boring-- which pushes us, readers, to venture further. And above all every single dialogue is thus creared that we can very easily relate to our daily lives. No wonder, this book also starts on a very funny note where you instantly get connected to the story. The following quote would make my point clear.

" Where did the milk go?" I said, empty Amul carton in one hand and fridge door in the other.

" Back in the cow," Saurabh said. He sat on the sofa, tying laces of his new, sparkling white sports sneakers."

And Lol the friends are having such conversation when they have stopped talking to each other!!

Saurabh and Keshav are two IIT Delhi pass outs who are currently working in a cybersecurity company called--" Cybersafe". But their real passion lies with the little detective agency they own which is called-- "Z Detectives." The duo lives in a rented and shared accomodation in South Delhi's not so posh Malviya Nagar market next to a Kirana shop. Though they have the hunger and ability to solve complicated murder mysteries but the kind of cases they usually get are,

" Apart from the occassional robbery, where someone's laptop or cell phone is stolen, Z detectives is a tame affair."

Why? Because people know that they are not James Bond, Raw and IB, so instead of getting hardcore criminal cases most of their "inquires are from aunties in the area, suspecting their maids of stealing their gold necklaces or their husbands of having an affair."

When the situation becomes so dull with all the interesting cases got dried up-- circumstances came to their rescue. Saurabh's fiancee Prerna met with an unexpected accidental death of which these two friends alone were left to probe.

And yes they very successfully finds out the real culprits! Thats the story.

The book is written beautifully in very known C.B. style which makes it a must readable. I liked it very much and would like to reccomend one and all to read it too.