Fatal Mistakes-Vedashree Khambete-Sharma

Book: Fatal Mistakes
Author: Vedashree Khambete-Sharma
Publisher: HarperCollins India

What if you received a series of cryptic messages asking for help?

Fatal Mistakes by Vedashree Khambete-Sharma is the story of what happens when Avantika Pandit, a reporter with Mumbai Daily, starts receiving a bunch of mysterious texts hinting at deadly crimes that have managed to stay hidden. While covering crime is her passion, but her editor makes her write features and listicles. To top things off, she is given a literal garbage assignment. Would she be able to decode the messages and unearth the truth without pissing off her boss, and cross over to the world of crime reporting, or is she on the path of committing a fatal mistake herself, both literally and figuratively?

Fatal Mistakes is a story that keeps you engaged from the very first page. As you read the author’s note about how to read this book, it sets you up and prepares you for the writing style of Vedashree. The storytelling is powerful and keeps you engrossed in the story with twists and turns so much so that you would not need a bookmark to accompany the book. The plot is quite linear, with a few flashbacks to set the tone of the plot. The language is simple and easy to understand. The thing I liked about this story is the way the author treats her story. It is not the usual crime thriller with silent corners and shady places. The crimes are explained and make sense to a reader as well as to the plot. Another thing that stands out about the book is that while the story dwells on crimes against women, it paints a picture from a neutral perspective and dies not cast aspersions on anyone. The descriptions are vivid, specially in a few scenes where the author uses all your senses to help you picture the scene. The climax is predictable but the way it is explored is fitting to the plot and closes the story beautifully, leaving just a thread to plot the next book.

The characters in the book are as unique as the story that is being told. Avantika’s character as a stubborn wannabe crime reporter is well created with enough examples to set her character arc. Her interactions with Uday, Dhruv and other people are quite detailed to help people understand her more than a crime reporter and empathize with her. Another character I liked was that if Nalini and the way her character arc shapes up was something that deserves a mention.

One aspect of the book that made it a tad bit more enjoyable were the footnotes that Vedashree has left that are a right mix of fact, sarcasm, and wit, introducing a cheeky narrator that jumps in to help the reader understand the reason why the said term is being used.

Overall, an excellent book that I would recommend to anyone who loves to read a well-plotted crime thriller that will not let you rest until the last page has been turned. The book scores a 4.84/5 for me.

Get a copy of the book here.