The book In the Name of God is my first from the author. I am not very impressed but not largely disappointed either.
Cover page
The cover page is like a preamble for any thriller: A man on hunt with some urban background. The book identifies itself by the cover to be a thriller. It is not a great cover but then it does work. So no complains.
Characters
There are so many! So many that you end up losing track of them during the course of the book.
Primarily there is a king of Thiruvananthapuram. He is the King and he knows it. He has his own audacious personality. Rajan, a man who challenges the wealth accumulated by the king and the temple. He is challenging the rule of the king but he is still pious. There is a group of jewellers which is supposed to help the court in auditing the ancient jewels gathered in the temple. There are a group of cops investigating a series of theft and murder. They are super Cops.
All the characters are designed with their own flavour. They are very different from each other. There is an authenticity in each of them. And this is what you enjoy while reading the book. Every character fires your curiosity.
Content
The book begins with Rajan fling a case in court asking them to investigate the wealth in Ananth Padmanabha swamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram. The simple objective was to audit the wealth but as the story progresses, someone gets murdered. A Jewellery store in Dubai gets looted and some more events align themselves to give an impression that all of them are linked to the discovery of wealth is the temple. A well-known jewellery designer and a team of jewel experts are roped in to evaluate the wealth and the thrill builds up.
As the story progresses the characters keep adding up and new events lead to new clues. This thriller is a roller coaster ride. It has been a long time since I have read thrillers, simply because it stopped exciting me. But this one seemed promising.
This book has everything that will keep you at the edge of the bed but still there are a few drawbacks. A new angle is added at every turn which fails to give an opportunity to you to do the guesswork. The plot is multi linear. So much so that it pushes an epilogue towards the end of the book. There are lose threads if not loopholes that justifies the epilogue but again you went on to ask yourself: what was the need of all this? At the end of the book you are left satisfied but you can’t help and crave for another end to the story. The book is set at the background of the temple but hardly anything happening in the book seems to point that way. The book had a potential which remains unharnessed, for me.
Language
The language is very simple. The structure is simpler. The chapters are super short. They make you sweep through the pages without making you realise the length of the novel (which is 400 pages by the way). The author has a skill of binding readers to the story. He is gifted.
Good points
The characters are intricately designed. You are going to live the characters in the pages. The content is fast paced. Flipping through the pages is made easy with easy writing.
Bad points
Too many characters to keep track of. The end kills the book. Pages are filled with intent to keep the thrill but it won’t do any hard if you tear a few pages. Book will be lighter and story will be unaffected.
Overall
The book is a great attempt at a thriller. The author has a gift for writing. I would love to read from him. This one is not an immense disappointment either.
Whom do I recommend this to
This is for those who enjoy thrillers, no doubt. Those who would like to read good Indian authors are going to like this book too.
Go ahead, grab yourself a copy of In the Name of God and tell us what you think about the book! If you are a Kindle person, ensure to select the Kindle edition of the book.
Looking to buy a Kindle?
The frontlit, high-resolution Kindle Paperwhite seems to be the officially preferred Kindle at Meraki Post; Veena, Gazala and Ram have one each. And while Pooja may claim she is more of the “Love the new book smell” kind of person, she may be secretly deciding between the premium Kindle Oasis and the simple and efficient Good Ol’ Kindle.
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