Author: Alexandra

The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown by Vaseem Khan

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Inspector Ashwin Chopra (Retd) a former member of the Mumbai police, is now one of my favourite characters. In this second installment of the Baby Ganesh series, we find Chopra settling into retirement as a private investigator, working out of an office in his new digs, a restaurant named after his wife, Poppy. This wonderful gem of a story fairly zips along at a motorised rickshaw pace, combining a number of threads that both delight and amused. And even if we think the arrival of both Queen Elizabeth and the Crown Jewels on a visit to Mumbai might seem impossible, we believe because Khan makes us believe.

Certainly I believe in Khan’s characters, who are all well drawn, including Chopra who is thoughtful, kind, intelligent, and a tad old-fashioned. He wistfully hankers for another time and is aware enough to realise how odd that makes him seem in the eyes of others. But it’s his integrity that stands out, Chopra lives in a world where bribery and corruption are the norm but he steadfastly refuses to give in, and let it consume him.

Whimsical, endearing, and upbeat, this mystery is told with a twinkle in the author’s eye. Chopra’s wry observations are engaging and humorous, offering up brief glimpses into life for millions in the bustling metropolis that is Mumbai. And while the story focuses on the theft of the Koh-i-Noor diamond, Chopra and his associate, Rangwalla, Baby Ganesh, and young Irfan—a street beggar turned waiter at Chopra’s restaurant—are seen chasing down leads on a number of cases.

I loved that we get to see Rangwalla and Chopra’s wife, Poppy, off on their own adventure, tracking down a stolen bust at the school where Poppy works. It’s these fun excursions elsewhere that add so much more to the depth and overall enjoyment of the read. As each character struggles to piece together and solve their own mysteries in these fun side-plots.

This is, at once, both a cozy mystery, and a lighthearted comic look at Indian life and culture. There is wit, drama, mystery and plenty of fun, with characters whose lives you become invested in, as this quirky, off-beat, mystery resolves itself to a very satisfying conclusion. And what’s not to love about a Cadbury chocolate loving baby elephant, named Ganesh?

Go on, you know you want to have a read!

AlexandraLeave a comment

THE NOVELIST: The moors beckoned, shrouded in mist, Cathy wandered through the bracken dreaming of Heathcliff.

THE REALITY: Cathy tumbled out of the country bus, walked through a break in a stone wall and onto the heath, only to be chased by a vicious looking sheep named Heathcliff.

Glory Main by Henry V. O’Neil

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GLORY MAIN by Henry V. O’Neil is one of those books, once started, you cannot put down. Classic military science fiction, Glory Main harks back to the likes of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, Barry B. Longyear Enemy Mine, and David Weber’s Honor Harrington series of novels, and along with well fleshed out characters, clever world-building, and is a fast-paced gripping read.

Featuring a small diverse group of enduring characters who are thrown headlong into a life or death survival situation, Glory Main jumps right in at the deep-end. Our cast of struggling survivors include a young, greenhorn lieutenant, a shipboard shrink, a Spartacan Scout, read: special forces commando type, and a map-maker who also happens to be a conscientious objector. This alone should tell you what to expect from four such opposed personalities. Throw in that they’re stranded on a harsh almost barren world amid a bitter and terrible war, were lies from Command are the norm. And fighting not only themselves, the local flora and fauna, and a slow death by starvation, but an enemy who, as it turns out, looks like them—The Sims. The Simulants. The facsimiles—And the stage is set for one hell of a battle of survival, wits, determination and sheer will against the mounting odds.

Plausibly written throughout, the tech and its use in Glory Main is very familiar and yet, still manages to have the futuristic and otherworldly edge to it. As does the setting. Just when we think we understand what’s going on, O’Neil tosses in another roadblock and obstacle for the characters to over come. But far from painting his characters into tight corners, creating either false jeopardy or contriving situations, you feel you are there, on this gritty, unforgiving world suffering through the worst with each and every character. And while written in the first person POV, as seen through the eyes of Mortas, the story still unfolds naturally, and realistically.

The best part of any story, for me at least, is whether or not the author manages to pull off a plausible blindside, something O’Neil does right near the end, in Glory Main. Not only was I (like many I suspect) happily surprised with a clever plot twist, but I suspect O’Neil has set us up for what we know must come in successive installments. And yes, I can’t wait for the next in the series. The world-building, language, descriptions and info dumps—when they came—never once over shadowed or weighed the story down and the pacing was near on perfect.

All-in-all, Glory Main is a well-written, fast and compelling read. Henry O’Neil certainly knows the military, and knows how to craft an engrossing story. And whether or not you enjoy reading military science fiction or not, the story, which is character-driven and character-based, is still worth a read!

Glory Main is everything an updated version of Starship Troopers should be, a cracking good read.

The Phlebotomist by Chris Panatier

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In THE PHLEBOTOMIST, Chris Panatier takes us into the heart of an almost Orwellian dystopian future set in 2067 (so not a too far distant future) where a mega corporation, PATRIOT, controls everything. From what people eat, to how people live after an apparent nuclear disaster starts a chain of events, allowing the corporation greater, and greater control under the guise of helping others survive after the first and subsequent nuclear strikes, and the devastation that followed.

In this future the corporation collects blood donations from the populace in order to help survivors in the Grey Zones. In return for their blood, collected every 45 days, people are given a monthly food box with rations enough to survive along with the basics. But people are also encouraged to give more blood in order to earn extra credits. And some, we learn, give more than they should.

But here’s the catch, the more generic your blood type, O pos or O neg, the more you can earn. So those with universal blood are earning more than those with rarer blood groups, AB pos and AB neg and the like—who are considered lowbloods.

Thus, the city has become a series of annexed ghettos of varying degrees, others worse off by simply being born with the wrong blood type and consigned to poor areas, and barely surviving.

Enter the unlikeliest protagonist in the guise of Willa Wallace, a grandmother, a survivor and more importantly, an old fashioned phlebotomist—an expert and specialist in the collection of blood and blood products. Willa works for Patriot—now the de-facto government—at a blood collection bank convinced she’s doing her part for saving lives.

It’s not long after the author has established the hierarchy, background, and what everyone’s everyday lives are like, that things start to go wrong … wrong that is, for Willa. It starts with a blood-hacker and known criminal trying to force her hand to pass off bad blood. But Willa is having none of it. However, the confrontation disturbs her and, when her cooler loaded with blood meant for Central Collections breaks down, Willa is forced to rush the defective cooler to the depot herself.

What happens next are a string of events that force Willa to reevaluate everything she think she knows, and everything she’s ever been told since the first nuke hit. Because, the truth is far more frightening when she realises who and more importantly, what Patriot are!

This revelation totally blindsided me in the best way possible, so that I was well and truly invested from that point on in finding out—along with Willa—what the hell was going on. And, along with a wily ex-marine and hacker, the Locksmith, falls in with Locks team in uncovering the truth and exposing Patriot for who they really are.

The characters are well delineated, and next to Willa, I loved Lock for her fierce loyalty and inability to give up. I especially enjoyed the evolution of Everard—who was a great character sketch in and of himself. Along with this great bunch of characters, the pacing is none-stop and relentless, in this 310 page novel, as it gallops to a very satisfying ending along with a handful more smaller revelations.

A fast, absorbing read, almost cerebral at times with themes that are current and spot on for events unfolding today, The Phlebotomist is a fresh take on an old tried and tested trope, given it a unique twist of its own that, in the end, was bloody good!