The Mandala Of Sherlock Holmes- Jamyang Norbu

Why did I pick up the book- because I cut my milk teeth on Holmes and if someone somewhere is talking about his missing years, I want in.

 Interest zones- the various Holmisms, including ‘Elementary My Dear- replace Watson with his Desi counterpart, the seemingly wild observations that end being uncannily true which remain a little fuzzy to us even after the detailed observations, the few Holmsian incidents. The glimpses of the familiar landmarks of Bombay in early nineteenth century make me sit up and let out an ‘aaaahhh’ of curiosity.

And the book- has some good crimes. The narrative is not superb but does not grate that it takes away from the story. The Indian Watson is interesting.

But- the story has too many melodramatic moments, the villain is almost Bollywood like near the end- perhaps you can’t escape the Bollywood experience if you belong to the subcontinent and the interest wanes in the middle.

Pick it up- if you are Holmes fan or if you want a non-demanding reasonably well written crime read.

©Maya

Love Walked in - Marisa de Los Santos

Day 1 and I am hooked, from page one word one and I already love Cornelia, her realist friend and the way she lives her life in series of movie moments and ..er.. movies. and way she warned me not to get too attached to Hayes because he doesn't "figure too much in this story." Then I met Clare and her her mother and I am intrigued. Oh and in case I didn't mention it before Santos writes brilliantly.

Day 2- of the wriitng  The reading has been going for a day more perhaps. Anyway- here's how she writes brilliantly:
As we talked, lights flicked on inside my head; by the end of the night, I was a planetarium.
He laughed his molten laugh, and I felt like the kid at the party who whacks open the pinata. Victorious and with treasures raining down on me.
How come we never meet men like him? A thought which makes me wait for the 'but'.
Let me give you some Clare lines.
Clare lived inside the storm- the black, spinning hurricane of fear.
Such meaness served up in the sweetest of tones, and to someone whose need for love was terrible in its completeness.
No wonder I can't stay away from Love Walked In.

Day Next- Really. No point in numbering the days when they have no real chronological meaning-
Humour. It's there, subtle and making you smile. Not LOL kind, but whatever it is, it works and works very well. And the really deep soulful, soul- searching moments told with simplicity, all the more effective, therfore.
Okay, I caught the ‘but’. I am not going to tell you where I caught it, only that I caught it when it affected something that mattered to me- isn’t that always the case? You may catch earlier or later and if you want, we can discuss separately about where you caught it vis-a-vis where I did. But the fact is that Martin is not a very likeable guy. But you know that Cordelia is going to fall in love with him; that is inevitable. Nothing we can about that.

After that, the book just swept me along with it and I drowned so completely in it that I don’t know who was funny, what was sad and which bit poignant.  Only that Martin is not the hero and there is a hero, a good deserving one. I shut the book, completely shaken; but a good shaken. If you want to be shaken, pick up this book and read it.


© Maya