'Murder On a Side Street' by Salil Desai .. book review

Murder on a side street

Author:  Salil Desai

Publisher:  Unicorn Books

ISBN10:  81-7806-277-1

ISBN:  978-81-7806-277-8

This is the second book by Salil Desai after 'The Body In The Back Seat'.  Murder on a side street is a very simple and straight forward thriller novel mainly based on the life of some freshly passed college students who have just started their job life. 

Three couples-six friends Sandeep, Divya, Kapil, Sharmeen, Jerry and Aarushi are very much irritated with there present job life. Among them Sandeep has the most irritating boss, Wadhwa, who constantly abuses him and threatens to spoil his career. Suddenly Sandeep finds himself in a situation where he becomes the prime suspect of his boss Wardwa's murder. Then the rest of his friends team-up to help him to prove his innocence. As the story progress and the five friends continue their investigation one after another many suspects come up; Wadhwa's wife and son as he was a wife-beater, one of his former female colleague who was sexually abused by him many times before and some partners from his fake SIM card Id business. The story goes on and the five friends continue their struggle to find proper proof  against the other suspects. Then a auto driver comes into the scenario who also robes Wardwa's house later and also becomes a suspect of the murder. The investigation office of the murder case PSI Marne also helps and supports the five friends to dig-up the truth. Later somehow one of the friends finds a strong motive against one of the suspects and PSI Marne forces him to confess. Then Sandeep comes out the custody much to the joy of his friends and family. At the end six friends decide to quit their current job and start a detective agency named Masters of Baffling Assignments(MBA) Detectives. 

Though the build up to the climax is good but the climax itself fails to thrill the readers much. At the end everything happens very suddenly. The characters are also not very properly described, they just suddenly appear and play their role. 

There are many positives also and the biggest of them is proper editing of the situations and incidents. All the situations are very to the point. There is not much excessive characters also. The story also moves on fast enough. As per my verdict its a good one time read for the first-time thriller readers. 

Ratings: 2.5/5..
 

Overland by Mark Stephen Levy ...book review

The Overland is an adventurous novel by Mark Stephen Levy published in 2011.


In story of the books revolves around the life of three main characters Danny, Heather and Emily. The story line actually swings around different time lines from 1969 to 2010 and different location of the world. The main three characters are from 1969 part. 


Danny first met Emily at his cousin Cathleen's place and they liked each other but circumstances separates them at that moment. The story then flows to 1979. Danny is now a doctor and has Heather in his life whom he wants to marry. But their relationship was also going from a tough patch. Suddenly Heather leaves Danny and decides to go for a magic bus ride to Kathmandu with her friends. Danny with some hope and some confusion in his mind decides to follow her there. Danny's travel continues through different countries and at last he finds Heather in Istanbul. They together goes to Afghanistan. At that very moment Soviet army attacks Afghanistan and they get separated again while went to buy Christmas gift for each other. Heather somehow makes her way out that county but an injured Danny gets stuck in the turmoil in-spite of his number of attempts to flee. He then meets Dr.Gulzar there and starts treating war victims in a local hospital. There to his surprise he meets Emily who is now a nurse. Their childhood love again starts to bond them together and they decides to flee Afghanistan together. Danny and Emily then comes to contact with Mustapha with the help of Anna. Mustapha provides them shelter and after a failed attempt to guide them out the country asks to wait until the end of winter. Their life goes on with time. At that very point Danny suddenly gets arrested by Soviet soldiers who also takes Emily away from him. Then with the help of Sargent Chernoff, Danny finally makes his way out via Tajikistan. He then goes to Washington D.C. There he meets Heather again who till now had no clue about Danny. Heather who thought Danny to be dead now falls in a dilemma whether to go back to Danny or to stay with her present love whom she met in Islamabad. But Danny who is now completely lost in the love for Emily tells Heather the truth and goes to Kathmandu to find her. At last he finds Emily down there at the end of the story.


The story line is very impressive and there are some pretty surprising twists and turns. The climax is scripted with grace and thought. The connection between different timeline is also well maintained thought the main part of the story is from past. There are some unfinished incidents also which I think is an indication of a possible sequel of the book. Overall a very entertaining book that will keep the interest going till the end and will leave with some good memories too.