Sunday, August 13, 2017

BookReview: Penumbra by Bhaskar Chattopadhyay




I liked this book. But I can only give this book 3 stars.

As a cozy mystery, it was good, but not extraordinary. And it had some irritants that gave rise to an uncomfortable reading experience. It was certainly not unputdownable.

The first sixty-six pages were quite slow, dealing with just introductions. Of course, every book must introduce its characters, and I do understand the first 1/3 of the book is where they usually occur, so the author hasn't done anything awful, but somehow I felt the book got a bit mundane and monotonous in this section. Sprinkling some kind of suspense or action or foreboding may have given it a lift. What kept me reading was only my knowledge that this is a murder mystery; if I didn't know that, I'd probably not have read beyond the first 50 pages.

I thought it could have been edited better. There were one too many repetitions, which I thought could have been avoided or at least camouflaged by a good editor. Also, the phrase "a few minutes" has repeatedly been used in a very vague sense, sometimes when it actually should have meant moments. To illustrate, nobody can sit absolutely still looking at you for a few minutes, even if they were surprised or shocked by something you said. That's does not practically happen. Also, one has only 2 (a maximum of 3) minutes to smoke a regular cigarette under normal conditions. The wretched thing just doesn't last much longer. When the narrator says a man who was smoking as he spoke could hold on to one cigarette for "a few minutes" and then evidently some more time as they continued to discuss, specially when there was a raging storm blowing and water splashing all over the veranda they stood on, it sort of irritates that the brain because it seems implausible. I really think the editor should have caught and resolved the "a few minutes" disease. There are many such small glitches, which perhaps don't take much away from the story and can be forgiven, but do cause irritation and an uncomfortable reading experience throughout the narration.

Another big cause for irritation was the police procedure. I'm not very sure I understand the author's premise here. When a double murder has been committed in a house, wouldn't it be natural for the police to immediately take the other inhabitants into custody and to cordon off the place so nobody can contaminate the scene of crime? That would make perfect sense to me at least. But in this story, the police inspector goes off after making preliminary observations and removing the bodies, leaving four constables at the scene, where the other inhabitants are also held in house-arrest. It is then that one or two of them play detective and try to solve the case. Somehow this whole premise didn't strike me as too credible. Why would any police inspector called to investigate a double murder risk holding back all the suspects at the scene of the crime, giving them ample opportunity to tamper with evidence either intentionally or accidentally? Maybe this would happen in a masala Bollywood flick, but I'm not sure otherwise. At least I thought it was just too incredible. And that affected the immersion factor, because I did not totally believe the story.

Even with all those irritants, I liked the overall story. That is the reason I'm giving it 3 stars.

I have also bought "Patang" and "Here Falls the Shadow" by the same author. I hope they are better written and edited. I shall review them when I've read them.

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