Death of a District Magistrate-Nachi

Book: Death of a District Magistrate
Author: Nachi
Publisher: Notion Press

What do you look for in a good murder mystery?

Death of a District Magistrate by Nachi explores the events of what happens when the death by gunshot of a powerful and controversial District Magistrate brings in the idealistic and puritanical DSP Arjun Iyer to the District Magistrate’s residence, where his large joint family lives. It seems like a suicide at first glance, but is it really one? Along with his assistant, the deeply loyal but irascible, devil-may-care Inspector Munuswamy, DSP Arjun leaves no stone unturned in investigating the case where surprise upon labyrinthine surprise awaits them until they arrive at the conclusion.

The story explores a nice premise and brings a nice character into focus who could be a focus of a series. The plot is quite interesting, and it starts on a nice note with the murder mystery deepening. I liked how the author builds up the suspense that surround the death of the District Magistrate. The storytelling is catchy, for the first part of the story and keeps the reader turning the pages. The descriptions are vivid and painting a picture of the events as they occur is quite easy. The plot, however, starts dragging towards the second half and the events start seeming repetitive and seem like fillers to increase the length of the plot, without contributing much to the overall story. The murder mystery plot seems to go on a backburner as things start closing in. The side plot of the romance also seems half baked. The climax could have been better without the DSP being judgmental and the flat tempo.

The character descriptions are well done and quite a part of the first half of the story. Nachi uses the descriptions to set up the plot in detail as we meet each our characters in detail and set up the climax way in the beginning as you can piece the path they take in the story. The thing I loved about the story was that no person is perfect and each of them have their own flaws and how they work around them, while someone take it negatively, some channel positive emotions from that.

A good story that could have been better, the book scores a 4.06/5 for me.

Thank you Writersmelon for providing a copy in exchange for a honest review.

Get a copy of the book on Amazon India here.