Book Review: Dying Day by Vaseem Khan

 

Book: Dying Day 

Author: Vaseem Khan 

Pages: 437

Read on: Kindle 

Read in: ~4.5 hours 

Plot Summary: A priceless manuscript. A missing scholar. A trail of riddles.

For over a century, one of the world's great treasures, a six-hundred-year-old copy of Dante's The Divine Comedy, has been safely housed at Bombay's Asiatic Society. But when it vanishes, together with the man charged with its care, British scholar and war hero, John Healy, the case lands on Inspector Persis Wadia's desk. 

Uncovering a series of complex riddles written in verse, Persis - together with English forensic scientist Archie Blackfinch - is soon on the trail. But then they discover the first body.  

As the death toll mounts it becomes evident that someone else is also pursuing this priceless artefact and will stop at nothing to possess it . . .

Harking back to an era of darkness, this second thriller in the Malabar House series pits Persis, once again, against her peers, a changing India, and an evil of limitless intent. 

Things I Liked:

1. This book had a great premise! A noted scholar working closely with the Royal Asiatic Society of India goes missing. Along with him is also missing one of the few early copies of Dante's The Divine Comedy, a manuscript that is much demand- as a priceless artefact and as the national property of Italy, who are keen to have it back. The case is handed to the team at Malabar House and is given to Persis. What starts off as a theft and a missing persons case takes a turn when riddles and puzzles are found hinting at the hiding place of the manuscript and along with it more dead bodies! Nice, right? 

2. The book is very fast paced and between the missing persons' investigation, a dead body showing up, which seems unrelated to the missing manuscript and the clues left behind by Haley, there is a lot going on in this book and in a good way! 

3. The riddles left behind by Haley are interesting and at just the right level of difficulty that even you and I can take a stab at them! The resources used by Persis to solve these riddles also seem believable and are the kind of people that can be found in any city's academic circles even today, I guess. The unravelling of each clue and the next place it leads to happens at a decent clip as well! 

4. The motive for the missing scholar and why he is leaving all these clues is interesting and fairly unexpected. It is a nice little mystery and rooted in recent world history of the 1940s. *wink wink* 

Things I Didn't Like: Nothing much. Some historical inaccuracies persist, but I am willing to look past them for the sake of the narrative. 

Rating: 4/5