Saturday 19 September 2015

Mini Reviews: The Nidhi Kapoor Story and Nothing Lasts Forever: No Secret Can Stay Buried


Book: The Nidhi Kapoor Story

Author: Saurabh Garg

Pages: 316

Read on: Kindle

Read in: 2-3 hours

Plot Summary: Two dogs and a cat are butchered at the home of Nidhi Kapoor, a leading Bollywood actress. Left behind is a mysterious letter threatening Nidhi and her family.

Nishant Kapoor, Nidhi’s father and a superstar of the yesteryears is confined to a retirement facility in the hills. Tormenting him are his recurring dreams of someone trying to hurt him and his family. 

A film set where Nidhi Kapoor is shooting for her much anticipated film goes up in flames. Trapped inside are Nidhi and her sister, Payal.

ACP Prakash Mohile is forced to take up the investigation. Rujuta Singh, a photojournalist chronicling the lives of policemen in Mumbai and shadowing Prakash, gets embroiled in the case.

Unwarranted incidents continue to happen and in absence of any real clues or motive, Prakash and Rujuta are forced to dig deeper in the past of the Kapoors. They unknowingly stumble onto a violent tale of lies, betrayal, treachery, infidelity and murder.

Time is running out fast and the unknown assailant is adamant on taking away from Nidhi everything that she holds dear - her career, her home, her reputation, her family and her life. With each move, he seems to be getting close. The answers however continue to elude Prakash and Rujuta.

What is it in their past that Kapoors are hiding from the world? 

What grudge does the assailant hold against the Kapoors?

And, can they save Nidhi? 

Review: This book is one of the few books that we picked up as a part of the Kindle Unlimited plan, recently launched by Amazon.in. We have signed up for a 6-month deal and so, I will be reviewing the offer in greater detail in a whole new post. So, anyways, this is one of the books that we picked up in the first batch, because we thought- why not?!  The premise sounded interesting- a crime involving Bollywood, a cop and a journalist trying to solve the crime- what is not to love?!
However, this is such a badly written, poorly planned out and a very in-your-face-obvious book.

Anyone with half a brain can guess who the killer is after the very first crime- the murder of Nidhi's dogs and cat. There is no intelligence in the writing and the author seems to be stuck in his 13 year old head- his idea of a sexy woman is one who smokes and drinks and wants to f*ck men for fun. Very, very juvenile approach to character development. Also, this book is poorly edited. It is full of typos and grammatical errors.

Rating: 2/5
Avoid this like the plague.


Book: Nothing Lasts Forever: No Secret Can Stay Buried

Author: Vish Dhamija

Pages: 264

Read on: Kindle

Read in: 3 hours

Plot Summary: When Inspector Michael D'Cunha is called in to investigate a fire incident in Mumbai's posh Worli Sea Face apartment, where Raaj Kumar has died, he is convinced it is arson not an accident - either for insurances or an adulterous relationship gone sour. But Raaj's wife Serena is out of the country and the suspected other woman Kim has more alibi than he can count.

A close friend of Raaj dies, in mysterious circumstances, soon after. But it's only when the Bombay Stock Exchange nosedives the police start digging old graves.

Review: This is another book that we picked up from the ones offered under the Kindle Unlimited offer. The premise sounded intriguing and it is always easy to read a mystery, so we thought why not, eh?! 

So, this book is quite interesting. It is decently written, goes into a lot of detail, moves back in time- from 1985 to 1996 to 2002 or so and does a good job of capturing each time period. Also, there is a decent amount of character development, especially, of one or two characters. I don't want to spoil the book, but there is a nice twist, even if it is sort of obvious, but not entirely. 

The way the story is built, the amount of details given in the book and the way the story develops is really well done. 

The end was a bit rushed, I wished it was also done in the same measured manner as the rest of the narrative! 

Rating: 3.5/5 
This book is quite interesting and if you want to read a decent crime/ mystery book, then this is  good one to pick up. 

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