Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Whistle up the Devil by Derek Smith

Image result for whistle up the devilI have been trying to get my covetous hands on this book for sometime now, it was not in print but then the good folks at Locked Room International(LRI), led by John Pugmire made it available for mystery lovers. The paperback is still pretty expensive around $20. I kept on procrastinating because of the cost and wanted to buy an old JDC, which was around $25. Also, for some reason LRI does not publish books by the grand master. Anyways, this Christmas I did muster up the courage and finally made the purchase. Totally worth it!

A man steeped in family tradition, wants to seal himself in the middle of the night, in an old dark room, at the back of his house to have an encounter with the family ghost. Mr. Querrin does not believe in ghosts, but wants to go ahead with the family tradition anyway.  His family is not of the same opinion, they are scared out of their minds and seek help from the police and an amateur detective to help protect Querrin. Here goes: 

The room is at the end of the house, has two entrances a french window watched by a cop, who is standing a few meters away constantly gazing at the french window doors, and on the other end a a door locked from inside by Querrin. This door leads to a hall which is watched by the detective and Querrin's brother. So before midnight Querrin enters the room, shuts both the doors from inside and the two doors are now being watched from the outside, on top of that heavy run has muddied the soil outside the french windows, anyone trying to gain entry will surely leave footprints.

Impossible to get murdered right?

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Indian Summer by Alex Von Tunzelmann

Indian Summer chronicles the personal and political lives of Edwina, Louis Mountbatten and like a cheap Bollywood love triangle India's first Prime Minister, Jawahar Lal Nehru. I'm being unfairly harsh, the books is an eloquent chronicle of India's fight for independence, but not how we imagined it to be. In this book, the author explores different personalities during those tumultuous times and how relationships between them decided the fate of India, Pakistan and even Britain. I'm of course referring to the Pre-independence and post Independence arena which consisted of stalwarts like MK Gandhi, Jinnah, Mountbattens, Nehru and Patel. These people were tied to each other not only professionally but also personally, they were the best of friends one day and sworn enemies the next.

The story presented by Miss Tunzelmann, focuses on the Mountbattens more than anyone else. How Edwina and Louis Mountbatten fell in love in India, went back to England and got married. Their marriage did not turn out to be a fairy tale, but which marriage does? Edwina started seeing other men and Dickie(Louis' pet name) became embroiled with the Navy. Later, Dickie was made the last Viceroy of India, responsible for transferring power from the Britishers to Indians. Edwina accompanied her husband to India, despite their growing differences. This is were Edwina met Nehru, she was smitten and he was bedazzled. Thus, began a love affair between the wife of perhaps one of the world's most powerful men and the future prime minister of the largest democracy the world would ever come to know.

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