Book Review – “Sacred Games” by Vikram Chandra

I had been wanting to read “Sacred Games” for a while when I heard that the book had been picked up by Netflix to be serialized. The release date was early July so I eagerly picked up the book, wanting to finish it before the show’s release so that I could be one of those irritating people who say, “The book is different.”

Now that I have finished reading this 900-odd page book, I sincerely wish that the serial is different. Don’t get me wrong; this is a very good book, with excellent characterization and gets the tone of the city of Mumbai almost perfect. However, I feel the book needed to be edited better and entire portions could have either been chopped off or greatly compacted. In trying to capture the motives and minds behind the actions, the author delves into too many details, most of which are not central to the plot. This could have easily been a tightly scripted 700 page book and would have been much more taut with tension.

Having put out the negative, let me now say what I really liked about this book. The author captures the city, the people and the language of Mumbai brilliantly. What impressed me the most was how well the characters “spoke”: Sartaj Singh sounds precisely like a Mumbai inspector whose mother escaped the riots of partition in 1947 and whose father was a duty-bound cop, and who is himself trying to lead the least harmful life in times when you cannot escape corruption. Similarly, Gaitonde is a tragic, yet evil character, whose ambitions and self-teaching nature comes across clearly. He sounds very much like a criminal warlord who is misguided and is made a pawn out of. One almost understands why he thinks the world works the way it does.

And then there are other wonderful characters: Sartaj’s mother, Mary, Jojo, Anjali Mathur, Kamble and Parulkar to name a few.

Still, the more I think about the book, the more frustrated I get at the many unnecessary diversions the book takes to tell us the story. I can only wish it was more concise. Hopefully, the TV series will be able to improve upon the book.

Snippets:

• “Most men want to be led, and there are only a very few who can lead.”
• “Food was the greatest and most reliable of pleasures, and to sit on Chowpatty and eat it with wife and family, with the sea heaving gently, was as close to contentment as Katekar had ever been.”
• “Writers are pathetically susceptible to praise. I have worked with politicians, and gangsters, and holy men, and let me tell you, none of these can compete with a writer for mountainous inflations of ego and mouse-like insecurities of soul.”

 

Read more about ‘Sacred Games’ on Goodreads. Buy the book here.

Title: Sacred Games

Author: Vikram Chandra

First Published: 2006

Number of Pages: 912

Price: (Hardcover) Rs. 650 / (Paperback) Rs. 446 / (Kindle) Rs. 279.30 – Amazon.in

My Rating: 7 out of 10

(Disclosure: If you buy the book by clicking on any of the Amazon links above, you will NOT get charged extra. However, I will get a small commission, 100% of which will go to charity.)

Essay Review – “The Hedgehog and the Fox” by Isaiah Berlin

This essay was referenced to in a podcast that I heard a few weeks ago. The podcast was discussing the difference between public intellectuals and modern day experts of specific areas. The podcast referenced a famous line from this essay to explain the difference: “There is a line among the fragments of the Greek poet Archilochus which says: ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.’”

I was fascinated by this and immediately read up this essay. It was, to put it mildly, not quite what I was expecting. To be honest, I don’t know what I was expecting in the first place. Perhaps more insights from ancient Greece, or a detailed explanation of whether it is better to be a hedgehog or a fox.

What I got instead was a look at the intellectual mammoth that Leo Tolstoy was, and his thoughts about history. The essay is fascinating, not only because it captures some of the challenges with teaching history today, but it is also a lesson in history itself because it broadly discusses the tumultuous history of Europe in the 18th century.

What was very interesting was that some of Tolstoy’s concerns with how history is taught is very reflective of how we think about it even now. Sample this:

‘history will never reveal to us what connections there are, and at what times, between science, art and morality, between good and evil, religion and the civic virtues. What it will tell us (and that incorrectly) is where the Huns came from, where they lived, who laid the foundations of their power, etc.’

and:

‘History is nothing but a collection of fables and useless trifles, cluttered up with a mass of unnecessary figures and proper names.’

And why was Tolstoy so concerned about learning from history? Well, because he was somewhat like Elon Musk, in that he believed in breaking things down to the first principles and  living by them. Tolstoy believed that the only way to live is to find out the science and the principles that apply to humanity and live by the values and ideas that emerge out of them. And the only way to learn these ideas is by studying history itself.

The essay then goes on to trace why Tolstoy thought in this manner, especially when he was writing his epic War And Peace. Isaiah Berlin, the philosopher author of this essay, masterfully shines a light on Tolstoy’s correspondence and his research to try and find the answers that might benefit humanity as a whole.

This is a beautiful, if academic and densely filled with knowledge, essay that I was glad that I bumped into. Perfect reading for a weekend.

Read more about ‘The Hedgehog and the Fox’ on Goodreads. Buy a copy here.

Title: The Hedgehog and the Fox

Author: Isaiah Berlin

First Published: 1953

Number of Pages: 96

Price: Paperback – Rs. 599 / Kindle – Rs. 500 (Amazon.in)

My Rating: 8/10

(Disclosure: If you buy any book by clicking on the Amazon links above, you will NOT get charged extra. However, I will get a small commission, 100% of which will go to charity.)

 

Short Story Review – “Stone Mattress” by Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood (image source)

 

“At the outset Verna had not intended to kill anyone.” That first line had me hooked right away. Not that I needed much prodding to read a story by the prolific Man Booker Prize winning author Margaret Atwood. I had heard so much praise about her works that I had been planning to read her novels for a while. However, when this short story came up instead, I pounced at the opportunity to get introduced to her work.

And what an introduction it has been! The story is about an elderly lady who goes on a cruise and happens to meet someone who brings back dark memories from her earlier life. She wonders if she should let things pass or not and after some deliberation, decides to take action.

The tale has its fair share of suspense and the reader empathises with Verna. The tale does have a definite end, but Verna and her motivations does make one pause and reflect on her actions of the present and the past. We are also left wondering whether justice was served and what the nature of justice is.

Not to say that the story isn’t funny. I found myself chuckling and grinning at more than one point. Perhaps this dark, macabre humour also contributes to why Atwood later clarified that she would like to categorise “Stone Mattress” not as a story but as a tale, in that it has a touch of the magical.

Although written back in December 2011, this story is absolutely relevant today in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Atwood shows the world not just the violence involved in sexual assault but also the emotions and challenges that survivors of sexual violence have to live with.

Read more about ‘Stone Mattress’ on Goodreads. Buy the book of short stories here.

Title: Stone Mattress: Nine Wicked Tales

Authors: Margaret Atwood

First published: 2014

No. of Pages: 320

Price: (Paperback) Rs. 460 / (Kindle) Rs. 346.92 (Amazon.in)

(Disclosure: If you buy books by clicking on any of the Amazon links above, you will NOT get charged extra. However, I will get a small commission, 100% of which will go to charity.)

 

Short Story Review – “City Lovers” by Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer (image source)

 

A few months ago, I read “Born A Crime” by Trevor Noah. The autobiographical book is about his experiences growing up in the apartheid regime in South Africa. What makes the story even more compelling is that Trevor was considered “a person of colour”, since his mother was African and his father was white. The book discusses not only the racism that was practiced, but also quite a few funny anecdotes of people not knowing how to treat him because he belonged to neither group.

“City Lovers” instantly reminded me of Trevor Noah. This short story, which appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 1975, is by the Booker Prize (1974) and Nobel Prize in Literature (1991) winning author, Nadine Gordimer. It tells the story of a European geologist working in South Africa who grows close to and gets intimate with a coloured woman whom he first happens to meet at the supermarket. Their relationships is considered illegal according to the laws present at the time, and they must hide their affair. The story traces their affair and the legal and social consequences.

I usually do not like stories that go nowhere. This was a wonderful exception. The story is truly thought-provoking, as it makes you wonder about not only the intentions but also the motivations of the various characters for acting the way they do. This is also true of the minor characters in the story, for example the doctor and the policeman. They’re not evil, just doing their job within a grossly racist system. The story doesn’t come across as a moralising tale, rather makes you focus on the personal relationship of the couple.

This is a beautiful little story which made me sit back and think awhile after I finished reading it. It’s a touching tale that I definitely recommend you to read.

You can hear a narration of the story here.

Read more about ‘City Lovers’ on Goodreads.

While I couldn’t find a book which had the story “City Lovers” in it’s collection, I did come across the following book which was edited by Nadine Gordimer and includes a short story by her as well. None of the authors contributing to the book took a fee or take any royalty from the sale of this book; all money goes to the treatment and prevention of HIV/Aids.

Title: Telling Tales

Authors: Various; Editor: Nadine Gordimer

First published: 2004

No. of Pages: 320

Price: (Paperback) Rs. 350 (Amazon.in)

(Disclosure: If you buy books by clicking on any of the Amazon links above, you will NOT get charged extra. However, I will get a small commission, 100% of which will go to charity.)

Book Review – “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin”

An incomplete story of a self-taught, multi-talented titan

 

I’ve long been fascinated by Benjamin Franklin, not just because he was one of the founding fathers of the United States, nor because he can be seen on the US 100 dollar bill. The interest stems from the fact that he achieved all the greatness in his life in spite of having very little formal education and having to quite literally teach himself skills which brought him all that success. To quote from a letter (included in the book) that someone wrote to him: “…you are ashamed of no origin; a thing the more important, as you prove how little necessary all origin is to happiness, virtue, or greatness.”

The book begins as notes to his son but quickly descends into too many details of his early life. I initially found the details interesting as they had a narrative feel to the “origin story” of Benjamin Franklin. But I soon found myself skimming past events that no longer seem relevant in today’s world. This book is, after all, almost two and a half centuries old!

What did impress me was the frugality and industriousness that was evident in Franklin’s life from a very early age. He first brought this ability of sheer hard work to teach himself writing and debating ideas. He later multiplied his knowledge, thus gathered, by associating and engineering gatherings of erudite people. The work ethic of simultaneously spending long hours at his printing business, reading and studying matters of public importance, discussing and debating with others and setting up of public institutions is immensely motivating.

What is disappointing and disgusting to read is the carefree manner in which women and Native Americans are badly treated and spoken of in the book. Nary a thought is spared for women who are left alone to bring up a child or the human rights of the indigenous people.

I was left a little underwhelmed by the time I finished reading this book. It ends literally mid-sentence and that is pretty much how you feel about the book as a whole. We only get a short look at the inventor and the diplomat, two aspects of his personality that I wanted to read more about. I guess I’ll just have to settle down and read the biography of Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson that I bought a few years ago.

Snippets:

• “Human felicity is produc’d not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.”
• “Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forc’d by the occasion.”
• “This library afforded me the means of improvement by constant study, for which I set apart an hour or two each day, and thus repair’d in some degree the loss of the learned education my father once intended for me. Reading was the only amusement I allow’d myself. I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolicks of any kind; and my industry in my business continu’d as indefatigable as it was necessary.”

Books I marked as to-read after reading this book:

• The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates – Xenophon
• The Golden Verses of Pythagoras

Read more about ‘The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin’ on Goodreads. Buy the book here.

Title: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Author: Benjamin Franklin

First Published: 1791

Number of Pages: 154

Price: Paperback – Rs. 98 / Kindle – Rs. 77.88 (Amazon.in)

My Rating: 6/10

(Disclosure: If you buy the book by clicking on any of the Amazon links above, you will NOT get charged extra. However, I will get a small commission, 100% of which will go to charity.)

Book Review – “Annihilation of Caste” by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

Dr. Ambedkar’s radical idea to end the evils of casteism

 

I can trace back my interest in reading the works of Dr. Ambedkar to the time when I studied civics in high school. What were the thoughts of the man who was the Chairman of the Constituent Assembly which drafted India’s Constitution?

Of the many hats that Dr. Ambedkar wore, none was more prominent than when he spoke up against the evils of casteism. It only takes a mild scan of the news reports today to see the injustices meted out to those who are considered from a “lower caste” (I’m cringing with disgust at having to write this). I can only imagine how much worse it was a century ago, in Dr. Ambedkar’s time, when he had to personally suffer indignation.

Annihilation of Caste is the speech that Dr. Ambedkar was invited to give at a conference in Lahore in 1936. However, the group that had invited him, on receipt of the advance draft of his speech, felt his ideas were too radical and requested he change a portion of the text. Dr. Ambedkar refused and preferred to have the conference cancelled rather than stand down on his principles.

The speech is an insight into the practices of untouchability and violation of civil and human rights that the Scheduled Castes (as they were later called) were subjected to. It tells us of the injustices and tortures that were commonly meted out to a group of people, only because they were considered to be unclean and born into a certain caste.

Dr. Ambedkar follows this up with demolishing one-by-one the various justifications used to defend the caste system. The scholarly breadth of his defence is breathtaking: from historical and social examples ranging from various parts of the modern world, to Greek and Roman empires, to sociology and science. He liberally quotes from the French Revolution and the Irish Home Rule movement, and explains the structure of government in ancient Rome to explain how a caste system is unfair.

He then takes the flame to the religion. Dr. Ambedkar attacks Hinduism and Hindus (Brahmins in particular) who have used the system to their advantage to keep others impoverished socially, martially and economically. The Manusmriti gets special mentions for the divisions that it created in society. Dr. Ambedkar argues that the only way to get rid of this evil is to discard Hinduism in toto and throw out the scriptures that Hindus consider holy, including the Vedas, Upanishads, the Bhagawad Gita and others. (I wasn’t using the word ‘radical’ lightly when I wrote the title of this blog post.)

The book then includes Mahatma Gandhi’s response to Dr. Ambedkar’s publishing the speech and the contents thereof. Gandhiji makes a few thoughtful arguments, but I did feel that they were missing the main point of the speech. Dr. Ambedkar says as much in his response to Gandhiji’s replies. There are clearly very strong differences of opinion between Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Ambedkar, but what is revealing (almost refreshing, given today’s times) to see how both respectfully disagree with each other and attack the topic rather than the person.

I did find myself scratching my head at times when I was reading Babasaheb’s arguments, but all in all, I finished this book a little more aware about the evils that existed and the residue of which can be seen till today. I don’t think Dr. Ambedkar had any delusions that he had found an easy solution, but in trying to explain his opposition, he gives us an idea of what it means to treat all people equally with respect.

Snippets:

• “He, who will not reason, is a bigot; he, who cannot, is a fool; he, who dares not, is a slave.” – Sir William Drummond
• “To sum up, let political reformers turn in any direction they like, they will find that in the making of a constitution, they cannot ignore the problem arising out of the prevailing social order.”
• “Democracy is not merely a form of government. It is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards fellow men.”

Books I marked as to-read after reading this book:

• Democracy and Education: an introduction to the philosophy of education – John Dewey

Read more about ‘Annihilation of Caste’ on Goodreads. Buy the book here.

Title: Annihilation of Caste

Author: Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

First Published: 1936

Number of Pages: 415

Price: Paperback – Rs. 300.20 / Kindle – Rs. 363.85 (Amazon.in)

My Rating: 8 out of 10

(Disclosure: If you buy the book by clicking on any of the Amazon links above, you will NOT get charged extra. However, I will get a small commission, 100% of which will go to charity.)

Book Review – “The Hero Within” by Carol S. Pearson

 

Caution: You might not recognise these heroes

 

If ever there was a case of “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover (or by it’s title)”, this was it.

When I was browsing Goodreads a few weeks ago, I stumbled across this interesting title and thought here was something that appealed to me. I should’ve researched better.

Dr. Pearson is a therapist who draws upon the works of Carl Jung and says that there are archetypes that our subconscious minds know of, and if we call on these, they can be a source of unleashing our potential.

Unfortunately, the book draws largely upon Christian and Greek mythologies to drive home the point. Most of the examples are from stories which people in a Euro-centric world would be familiar with. As an Indian, these had very little impact for me. This made me think how different cultures around the world might be at a loss to connect with it. What of people from countries in Asia and Africa who have a treasure load of mythologies from their own cultures? This idea of “hero by templates” wouldn’t stand for them.

Another shortcoming, although not a fault per se, was the fact that the book is old. Examples seem dated, and the realities mentioned seem from a lifetime away (which, in this case, is the 1990s). The book hasn’t aged well, and I constantly felt like the author was speaking in generalisations.

I have to say that there were some portions which did make a lot of sense, as is evidenced by the highlights and notes I made while reading this book. Yet, these were too far and few in between to make me want to continue struggling. I usually don’t give up on a book till I’m at least 20-25% done with it, and in this instance, I read up to 40% of it. Sadly, no more.

I’d much rather go back to reading about achieving my potential with the hope that I can get better at anything and hard work.

Read more about “The Hero Within” on Goodreads.

Title: The Hero Within

Author: Dr. Carol Pearson

First Published: 1986

No. Of Pages: 338

Price: Paperback – Rs. 1271 / Kindle – Rs. 293.42

(Disclosure: If you buy the book by clicking on any of the Amazon links above, you will NOT get charged extra. However, I will get a small commission, 100% of which will go to charity.)

Book Review – “Mindset” by Dr. Carol Dweck

 

It’s official: Nothing is impossible

If you have always felt that there are some things that you could never be good at (mathematics, science, drawing, dancing, chess…) because you’re “wired” a certain way, then this book is here to challenge that notion.

“Mindset” makes the claim that *anybody* can get good at *anything* they put their mind to. The author does not claim that you will definitely become the world’s best at your chosen activity or skill, but if you work diligently and scientifically, there’s almost nothing that you can’t become better at. This “growth mindset” is in contrast to the “fixed mindset” where one believes that we are born with a set of skills and that there is no way we can become better at other things.

A couple of caveats, though. The author points out that there are always going to be the 1-2% people who do have skills which would make us label them as geniuses. Then there might be the 1-2% folks at the other end of the spectrum, who might have learning disabilities and hence find it more difficult and take longer to pick up a certain skill. However, for the remaining 96-98% of the population, there is tremendous scope for improvement.

The other thing one needs to watch out for is that people who have a “growth mindset” in one area of life might have a “fixed mindset” in another. This was akn interesting wake up call for me.

I identify myself as someone who largely believes in the growth mindset, although I was barely knowledgeable of the term before I picked up this book. However, even I was surprised to learn that a skill like negotiation could be learned. This jolted me a bit and now I find myself questioning everything that I thought I couldn’t learn or be good at.

The book also touches on thei issues of sexism and racism. Negative labels can limit women and communities to feel that they canonot achieve excellence in certain disciplines; STEM or financial management, for example. I was glad the author mentioned this because it tied in directly to the essay “We Should All Be Feminists” that I read just last week.

The one criticism that I do have of this book is that the examples are mainly American. While I do understand that the book was largely aimed at an American audience, the success of it’s subject matter surely deserved an international comparison.

This book made me go back to “Grit” and made me realise how well that book was structured. In it, the author listed four reasons how grit could be cultivated: interest, passion, purpose and hope. This book addresses that last factor, hope. If people realise that they can get good at anything provided they put in systematic effort, they will tend to apply themselves to a job or a task for a longer period of time.

I cannot recommend this book enough, especially to parents and teachers. The book shows how vulnerable young kids are to labels and fixed mindsets and how making them believe from an early age that they could achieve almost whatever they put their mind to is much more empowering than feeling helpless and trapped.

Snippets:

• “It’s ironic: The top is where the fixed-mindset people hunger to be, but it’s where many growth-minded people arrive as a by-product of their enthusiasm for what they do.”
• “Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn’t mean that others can’t do it (and sometimes do it even better) with training.”
• “Later, at a meeting of Hewlett-Packard engineers, Packard gave the young man a medal “for extraordinary contempt and defiance beyond the normal call of engineering duty.” ~grins~

Read more about “Mindset” on Goodreads. Buy the book here.

Title: Mindset

Author: Dr. Carol S. Dweck

First Published: 2006

Number of Pages: 301

Price: Paperback – Rs. 330 / Kindle – Rs. 215.60 (Amazon.in)

My Rating: 8 out of 10

(Disclosure: If you buy the book by clicking on any of the Amazon links above, you will NOT get charged extra. However, I will get a small commission, 100% of which will go to charity.)

Book Review – “We Should All Be Feminists” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

For some time now, I’ve been thinking of reading up on the topic of feminism. I’ve always believed in the equality of the sexes and strongly disapprove of any unfair action or behaviour that women have to put up with. But I had a couple of questions for myself: What precisely makes one a feminist? How do I show support to the idea of equality of the sexes?

In this powerful essay by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie answers those questions and more. Based on a TEDx talk she was invited to give, Chimamanda speaks about her own experiences while growing up in Nigeria and of some of her friends in Nigeria and America. These experiences, however, are Universal. Even as a man living in India, I found myself shaking my head at a couple of places, recalling the casual sexism that exists in our society.

This isn’t a scholarly work where the author enumerates the societal and economic costs of not treating men and women equally. This is a personal insight into the experienced injustices and frustrations that women all over the world have to deal with.

What is important to realise is that it would be foolish to assume that these do not affect the world of men. We share the same planet, remember?

My favourite part of the essay was when she listed one by one the reasons how we have over the years been normalising sexist behaviour, and follows that up with reasons why these justifications do not stand. “Why just feminism, why not human rights?”, “Look at the animal kingdom”, “But that is our culture” are some of the most commonly (and immensely flawed) arguments that people who do not want to challenge the status quo use. Like sexist behaviour, these justifications too seem to have a Universal presence.

In summary, this is a VERY important essay. I will argue that it is much more important that every *MAN* reads this essay than every woman. If we have to build a society whose culture is based on equality and meritocracy, we need to get the voices of women to be heard by the current establishment who will find it loath to let go of their comfortable seats.

Snippets:

• “I am angry. We should all be angry.”
• “There are far fewer guides for men about pleasing women.” Legit thinking of writing a post titled “A man’s guide to pleasing women.”

Read more about “We Should All be Feminists” on Goodreads. Buy the book here.

Title: We Should All Be Feminists

Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

First Published: 2014

Number of Pages: 64

Price: Paperback – Rs. 202 / Kindle – Rs. 148.15 (Amazon.in)

My Rating: 10 out of 10

(Disclosure: If you buy the book by clicking on any of the Amazon links above, you will NOT get charged extra. However, I will get a small commission, 100% of which will go to charity.)

Book Review – “The Secret Adversary” by Agatha Christie

At Blossom’s Book House in Bangalore last year, I was a little wary of picking up this book because up until then, of all the Agatha Christie novels, I had mostly just read the Poirot and the Miss Marple stories. Little did I know that I would enjoy this book just as much as the others, given that it read like the taut story-line of a Hitchcock thriller.

But before we begin, a short history lesson. The year is 1915, right in the middle of the First World War. The USA hasn’t joined the War yet, but tremors have been felt and there is a general state of anxiety and intrigue. In the midst of this, the RMS Lusitania is sailing from America towards England, when it is torpedoed by a German submarine. The ship sinks, killing 1198 civilians on board. The sinking of the Lusitania causes outrage not only in England but also in America, as she was also carrying 198 Americans who do not survive the attack.

Right, back to the novel. The prologue starts on board the Lusitania, minutes after it has been torpedoed. A quiet, confidential looking American man, acknowledging that women and children are being asked to get on to lifeboats first and that he himself might not make it to shore, approaches a young girl. He asks her to safeguard a document which he assures her would be very harmful to American and British interests if it were to fall into the wrong hands. He does warn her to be very careful as he might have been followed. The girl nervously looks around her as the man disappears into the crowd.

Fast forward to a few years later: the war has ended and we meet two happy-go-lucky friends, Tommy and Tuppence, on the streets of London. They’ve been friends since childhood and had reconnected a few years earlier. Since then, they have hit upon hard times. Over a cup of tea, the duo decide to form “The Young Adventurer’s Ltd.” as a means to look for employment from people who might want Tommy & Tuppence to undertake dangerous activities on their behalf. This is when a man approaches and engages them to try and find the girl from the Lusitania, who we learn has gone missing since.

The pair use their wits to try and track down the girl, all the while trying to stay ahead and clear of an organisation which is also trying to find the girl and the document. The organisation is headed by the mythical Mr. Brown whom no one has seen, but whose sinister presence is felt everywhere. Do Tommy and Tuppence find the girl and the documents? Or is Mr. Brown, who looms like a shadow over his organisation, able to use his cunning to get the papers and thereby attempt to destabilise various European governments?

For someone who was sceptical when starting this book, I was thoroughly enjoying myself towards the end of this old school spy suspense. Sure, the dialogue of the characters is a little dated (the book was first published in 1922, almost a century ago now), but that adds its own charm. Also, the early style of writing also confirmed my notion that this was one of the first few detective novels that Agatha Christie had written.

My favourite character in the book is the girl Tuppence. She is spunky, sharp and trying to break the shackles of the good Victorian behaviour prescribed for the girls of her time. She doesn’t let Tommy treat her as if she is the gentler sex and has a retort ready for all his verbal jabs.

Although I could guess the identity of the villain mid way through the novel, the whodunit nature of the book kept the suspense building right till the last chapter. If you like thrillers which evoke the sense of the black-and-white Hitchcock spy films, definitely give this a read.

Snippets:

• “(Father) has that delightful early Victorian view that short skirts and smoking are immoral.” I would be amused to see what Tuppence’s father thought of the world today.
• “Every revolution has had its honest men. They are soon disposed off afterwards.”
• I’m guessing Agatha Christie wanted to make it really clear that she felt Americans are full of vim and vigour; more than once she uses the word ‘hustle’ in reference to an American gentleman, and a few pages later, this happens: “Julius,” said Tuppence firmly, “stop walking up and down. It makes me giddy. Sit down in that arm-chair, and tell me the whole story with as few fancy turns of speech as possible.”

 

Read more about “The Secret Adversary” on Goodreads. Buy the book here.

Title: The Secret Adversary

Author: Agatha Christie

First Published: 1922

Number of Pages: 220

Price: Paperback – Rs. 265 / Kindle – Rs. 49 (Amazon.in)

My rating: 9 out of 10

(Disclosure: If you buy the book by clicking on any of the Amazon links above, you will NOT get charged extra. However, I will get a small commission, 100% of which will go to charity.)