Author: Reecha Agarwal Goyal
Publisher: Vishwakarma Publications
I was provided a media copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Do you believe one person’s justice can be another one’s injustice?
A case of serial killings rattles the city of Mumbai. The victims are men
in the age group of sixty to seventy. The only clue (or rather, the message)
left by the killer at the crime scenes is a picture of a goat inside a heart.
The case leads a police inspector, Naina, into uncovering of the dark world of
human trafficking and other mysteries. The case takes Naina to Nera, a town in
Nepal, from where majority of the girls were trafficked in the city. There, she
learns about the lives and plight of the trafficked women and vows to do
something about them. There is a new revelation, new turn in the case every
day, which renders all her postulations false and keeps Naina guessing. Naina’s
world turns upside down when she finds that the real story behind everything is
something else – something darker- something very unexpected and that it is she
who is at the centre of all the mysteries. In the end, she is left grappling
with two fundamental questions: who was the real murderer? Is one man’s justice
another’s injustice?
A thriller about a serial killer is usually a journey where you are actively participating in the story and along with the investigative team, keep on solving the clues to unmask the identity of the killer before they do, atleast that is what I try to do to keep the thrill alive. What happens in Reecha’s book is you are proven wrong the moment you think that you’ve identified the culprit, and I think that is one of the best aspects of the story. The story is quite well plotted and the themes that Reecha explores in the book are quite interesting. I really liked how she connects the social evil of Human Trafficking and the killer on the run so smoothly. The book is quite fast paced and keeps you hooked right till the end. While the plotting and the storytelling is gripping, I felt that the writing could have been a bit crisper because there were moments where the story felt a bit dull and some aspects of the story such as the symbolism of the goat inside the heart could have been explored a bit more. Secondly, I would have liked to read a few chapters from the perpetrator’s perspective as well, so as to understand their psyche as well. The climax has been well planned and brings the story to a close nicely!
Coming to the characters, Reecha has created characters with a shade of
grey and I think that worked quite a bit in the favour of the story. I liked
how Naina as a character is powerful, yet she is powerless in front of her
urges, but still manages to come out on the other side of it. Vikrant is
another character who impressed me quite a lot, and specially in the middle
section of the book where he swings between being a suspect, and not being a
suspect at the same time.
Overall, the book is a good read if you are looking to pick up a pacy and
gripping thriller. The book scores a 4.25/5 for me.
Grab a copy of the book on Amazon or your nearest bookstore!
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