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Showing posts with the label thriller/murder mystery

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

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It usually so happens such that I first read the book and then watch the movie. But in this case, I first saw the movie and after about 3 months, read the book. And ever since, "I will do a Gone Girl on you", has been my favorite expression to throw at my husband, to mock threaten him. The best part and also the worst part of reading a book after watching the movie is you just imagine the actors faces when reading the book. Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck are just perfect for the characters. Gone Girl is easily one of the best books that I have read till date. Gillian Flynn has so brilliantly captured the characters that you just can't believe that they are fictitious -even though Amy is someone whom you just can't believe that she actually exists. And there lies the brilliance of the author. By now, am sure you all know the basic outline of the story -Amy Elliot Dunn disappears from her house on her 5th wedding anniversary and her husband becomes a prime su...

Even Money - Dick Francis & Felix Francis

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The plot of this book revolves around horse racing and it is written by an erstwhile star jockey. I feared that the book will be too technical for someone who does not even fully understand how the betting odds work. But Even Money was such a breezy book that I felt as if I was reading a Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew book for grown ups. The protagonist of this book is Ned Talbot, an independent bookmaker who sets shop in all major horse races in England. One day, a man turns up and tells him that he is his father..the father whom Ned was told by his grand parents that he died 37 years ago. And promptly, before the astonished Ned could exchange more than a few skeptical sentences with the new found father, the father gets murdered. Why? By whom? And what does Ned do about it? This is the gist of the book. The book has very limited set of major characters. Ned's wife, Sophie, who is battling mental illness. Ned's partner Luca, his apprentice Douglas. The relationsh...

The Silkworm -Robert Galbraith

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I didn't know that Robert Galbraith was the pseudonym of JK Rowling until I had almost finished the book. And, since I have not read Harry Potter, Robert Galbraith is a completely new author for me. And now that I am finally sitting to write a review, I realize that I have been reading only whodunit novels for quite some time now. Need to read a different genre soon! Maybe some drama or history or some breezy chicklit? The Silkworm features Robert Galbraith's protagonist -Cormoran Strike -Afghan veteran turned private detective operating out of London. Tall, bulky, with a boxer's profile and tight curly hair, he is short of a leg knee down. Cormoran takes up the case of finding Owen Quine, a not so famous author. His wife approaches Cormoran to track the errant author, who has the annoying habit of going off by himself and returning after a few weeks. But instead of finding the Owen Quine, Cormoran finds the horribly mutated body of the author, who has been murdered...

Kind of Cruel -Sophie Hannah

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It has been quite some time since I chanced upon a book that actually made me think. And before I proceed further, I still don’t  take back most of what I wrote about Sophie Hannah here . I have been rotting in the sad premise of bedside reading for years now. Most of my reading is just scanning. I don’t pay real attention to individual sentences or words. I have even skipped chapters when the author resorts to mindless description or endless dialogues or boring arguments that really don’t contribute to the plot. But Sophie Hannah made me re read the prologue twice –so compelling was her theory about stories and memories that I ended up poking my brain for memories and stories and tried to distinguish between the two based on her explanation. The book satisfied me on so many levels. This book is a classic whodunit which keeps hinting who the perpetrator is and also confirms it midway. But the author keeps us gripped because we want to know how the 3 apparently rand...

The other half lives -Sophie Hannah

Genre: (A not so thrilling) Thriller Unputdownable Quotient: low Over all rating: 2.5/5 This is the first book I have read by this author. Will I take another book of hers the next time I visit my library? Yes. I will. Well, now that it is established, lets move to the book. A psychologically disturbed woman -Ruth Bussey with strict catholic upbringing seeks the help of a psychologically disturbed ex-CID -Charlie Zailer, who is now serving as community police. Ruth tells Charlie that her lover -Aiden Seed, psychologically disturbed picture framer, claims to have killed a woman years ago. But Ruth knows that the woman Aiden claims to have killed is alive and well. At the same time, Aiden approaches CID Simon Waterhouse, Charlie's FiancĂ©, with the story that he had killed a woman years ago. He gives complete description of the woman -Mary Trelease, the address where he killed her how he killed her and so on. Simon -the psychologically disturbed CID with strict cat...