By its very nature, a short story is instantly gratifying. A great short story, however, lingers on. It reaches into the inner recesses of your mind, tickles you and comes back to haunt you over and over again. And Tejaswini Apte-Rahm’s debut collection of stories, These Circuses That Sweep Through The Landscape, does just that.

Her characters are unassuming — a wife, who despite being dumped by her husband and children, looks for ways to win them back, lovers turned friends who meet again after years, a little girl who longs for her mother’s attention, two couples whose friendship is laced with strange undercurrents — ordinary beings that we probably cross paths with every day.

There’s nothing unassuming about the lives they lead, though. Continue reading →

To put it in the simplest words, a good book urges you turn its pages. And Keigo Higashino’s A
Midsummer’s Equation does so. The Japanese writer’s latest offering is his third crime thriller in
the Detective Galileo series. The novel follows physicist Manabu Yukawa as he secretly investigates the mysterious death of a man at Green Rock Inn who apparently comes to Hari Cove for a conference on an under-water mining operation. While cops find the reason of death accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, Yukawa suspects more. He digs deep and finds that behind the friendly facade of the inn owner, Narumi Kawahata’s family, lies a sinister story from 16 years ago, which is linked to the murder.

If you’re a Higashino fan, chances are you know his style — simple yet intriguing with a kicker at the end. In that sense, this book doesn’t disappoint. It’s got all the trademarks of a Higashino novel: A seemingly open-and-shut case with a niggling hole, a slow and steady unravelling and a climax that leaves you going ‘whoa’. But if you had to nitpick, the characters don’t seem as complex as his previous ones, such as Tetsuya Ishigami in The Devotion of Suspect X; and the premise itself seems a tad forced and unconvincing. The character of Yukawa can’t be faulted, though. Higashino writes him perfectly as the aloof, sometimes kind and almost always maddeningly cryptic detective.

Should you read it? Yes. Will you love it? If you’re a die-hard Higashino fan, perhaps not, but you’ll still like it.

Title: A Midsummer’s Equation
Author: Keigo Higashino
Publication: Hachette India
Price: 399

One of the many things I realized when I started reading Aindrila Roy’s I See You was that I shouldn’t have read it at night. Not just because it was difficult to put the book down which resulted in lesser-than-usual number of sleeping hours but also because she manages to deliver a few horror punches that made it difficult to get up in the night in case I had to use the bathroom.

I See You is a story of Liam, a strapping young man from a rich family, who is being plagued by severe headaches followed by strange dreams and hallucinations. To make those worse is Lily, his ex-girlfriend who seems to be out to get back at him for dumping her unceremoniously. There’s only bright spot – Aliana who casts a spell over him with her enigmatic personality and beauty. But as he tries to get closer to her, he starts discovering something puzzling about her. As Liam sinks deeper and deeper into madness, all hell breaks loose. Will he survive it?

I really liked that the story gets to the point, no dilly-dallying about the weather or the colour of the grass. We’re immediately introduced to all the key characters and the writer gets down to business. The build-up is slow and steady, almost making you want to skip the pages and get to the action — almost. The writing, though, is so good that you don’t. The writer also has a way with imagery, powerful and sharp, and has a knack for describing sounds and smell. After a couple of chapters, things start getting really interesting. You will turn the pages till the end – that’s for sure.

What I liked:

• The subject, of course. Always up for reading horror.
• I like how every character is described — the cat included — in enough detail that you feel like you know them and that they don’t feel superficial.
• The language — given the quality of some self published books these days, the writer’s hold over vocabulary is very good. Sure, there are a few errors here and there but hopefully they will be sorted in the coming editions.

What I didn’t like:

• It takes some time before things get moving. For a long time, I felt as though there was too much about Liam’s constant headaches and Nyx’s ‘antics’.
• I’m not sure how the character of Nyx really contributed to the plot – even at the end when it is all explained. It did have a ‘creep’ factor but I couldn’t understand its involvement in the plot.
• I wish the plot had been stronger. Or that the end had been explained better: Was there a concept of re-birth involved? I can’t talk more about this without revealing anything!

P.S: A special mention for the cover – simple, intriguing and uncluttered. Really like it. Blurb could’ve been slightly better to give a hint of horror, but thumbs-up for the cover.

Author: Aindrila Roy
Publisher: Amazon
Kindle Price: Rs. 130
Buy it on Amazon here.

It has been a long time since I’ve picked up a book in the morning and finished it by night – Mark Edwards’ Follow You Home was this book. I picked it up thinking it was an out and out horror but it wasn’t. It was so much more.

Follow You Home is a story of a couple, Laura and Daniel, who decide to take a trip around the world before settling down. The last leg of their journey, though, gets cut short. They’re forced to get down at a railway station in a village in Romania in the middle of nowhere. They find an abandoned, decrepit house in the middle of the forest – and there begins a series of bizarre experiences that leave them scarred forever. Cut to present day, Daniel and Laura are not together anymore, their relationship strained by their experiences. To make things worse, they start to feel as if something is haunting them. But what? Or who?

Edwards is a clever, clever storyteller. The first 2-3 pages don’t really hook you but the cover is enough to intrigue you to keep reading. The true strength in his writing is in the descriptions – they are long but not once do you feel that he is going over the top or he’s going into too much detail. The imagery is really powerful.

Sample this: Laura headed towards the staircase and I followed her. We trod as quietly as we could. The stairs were disintegrating in places, the floorboards loose and springy. I noticed something snagged on one of the steps and, looking closer, saw that it was a clump of hair.

Almost every single chapter ends on a cliffhanger, and that’s no mean feat. The book starts off with what looks like a horror story and stays that way till about three quarters of the book, till it transitions into psychological horror, which is just as disturbing, and then graduates into a completely different plot. One book with multiple sub-plots woven together really well. It stands the risk of having too much of everything but I loved it regardless.

After a certain point, I knew which way the book was headed but that didn’t deter me from turning the pages. As if the numerous surprises were not enough, Edwards leaves you with one final blow at the end, which in my opinion felt like an anticlimax but didn’t bother me too much. There were a couple of scenes that didn’t feel convincing enough; unfortunately I can’t reveal these without compromising the story. So I won’t.

What I liked:

• The language: it’s not simple, it’s not difficult, it’s just right.
• The way he switches between first person and third person effortlessly – this would be a good example for those who often wonder how to switch between POVs.
• The visuals – really, really liked these.

What I didn’t like:

• Laura’s character isn’t convincing at times, especially towards the end.

In a nutshell: I really liked this book. Would recommend picking it up.

Author: Mark Edwards
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Kindle Price: Rs. 129
Buy it on Amazon here.

Let me start off by saying that I am biased towards short stories. They appeal to the impatient soul in me that wants to “get there” quickly. Sharath Komarraju’s collection of short

Sharath Komarajju’s ‘The Narrow Road To Palem’

stories, replete with characters that have all kinds of personalities — jealous, cruel, shrewd, chronically depressed — carry a generous pinch of dark. Yet, they are earthy and charming. When you read the stories, you tend to get the impression that you’re standing right there, albeit a short distance away. It feels like the author really knows the surroundings, his language has ample local flavour and the prose is simple yet elegant.

Some think that great writers also use big words, but (and this is my personal opinion) for me, great writing is simple words woven well; they won’t have you reaching for the dictionary every few pages. I loved the simplicity of the language. Granted, there are few places where the choice of words is odd, but in the grander scheme of things, it’s easy to overlook them and accept The Narrow Road to Palem for what it is – a charming set of stories that make for a perfect accompaniment to a hot cup of tea on a cold, rainy day.

What I liked

• The simplicity of the language.
• The thread of dark that runs through the stories.
• The rather interesting themes of the story.

What I didn’t like

• I know you’re supposed to suspend belief in reading sometimes, but there were some places in a few stories that were hard to digest – like in Malli, her sudden possessiveness of her son, for which there isn’t much background (not that it’s difficult to understand).
• There were some editing errors, not a lot. Still, it’s a major eyesore when you’re reading something really good and that experience is taken away by an error that could’ve been avoided with a good round of proofing.

I do recommend picking this one up when you want to read something quick, something light and something quite entertaining.

Format: Kindle Edition
Publisher: Sharath Komarraju
Price: Rs. 99
Buy it on Amazon here.
Read more about Sharath here.