Murderous Greed by Arun K. Nair
Published by Notionpress on 2017
Genres: Mystery, Fiction
Pages: 203
Format: Paperback
Goodreads

Crime Fiction is one of my favourites genre to read. I can read books falling under this genre in no time. In my reading years, after reading both classics and contemporary crime fiction novels, I have concluded that a good crime fiction is written with variant in its narrative pace. Not only it keeps the reader driving forward, continue the guess work, but it eliminates the possibility of having dragging components in between. Murderous Greed by Arun K is an excellent example of that.

The plot is set in town of Avadi, Tamil Nadu where two tragic occasions have happened on one morning. In the first one a woman falls victim to chain snatching and gives away her life in the process. In the second case, a young business man falls short of his life and his shot at least twice, reported by the witness. A police officer is on the roll and has a deadline to match to complete these cases. But more over he suspects are these two cases interwind somehow? Follow Satyajit, the contemporary detective inspector, as he attempts to uncover these dubious questions.

The storyline has an average start as it takes time to build up the whole situation and the life around the characters involved. I always, when introducing a detective, or protagonist in mystery or crime fiction novels, a writer should spend some amount of time in the process of building up the surreal reality. It is always a good sign, or a good start in my opinion and is an essential step in crime fiction genre. The author of this book does that. The narrative voice uses third person element gracefully.

The characterisation of this novel is interesting because these characters play bigger role. The character of protagonist gets the reader’s attention from the start and does take enough time to develop and it feels his character might fall flat in the first half of the novel. Believe me, things get a lot more interesting in the second half, as soon as your half way through this novel. The pace of this book is smooth at times but picks speed when it has too. This novel does not classify as a complete thriller until the climax but in my opinion it does not have too. There are strong vibes from the start that mystery included is going to be larger than life kind of thing.

As a reader, to fulfil the challenge of solving the mystery is a bit difficult int this novel. I am sure, many might do but I could not. The reason being the well use of red-herring element by the author. A master display of that. I am surprised by the conclusion and found it a delight at the same time.

Pick this one up if you have taste for crime fiction or mystery. There is a sequel coming this year.

4 out of 5

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