Kim's Review : This Doesn't Happen in the Movies - Reed Fergurson Series

This Doesn't Happen in the Movies is the first in Renee Pawlish's - Reed Fergurson Mystery Series. Reed Fergurson is just setting up his detective agency inspite of family opposition

A wannabe private eye with a love of film noir and detective fiction.
A rich, attractive femme fatale.
A missing husband.
A rollicking ride to a dark and daring ending.

Reed Ferguson’s first case is a daring adventure, complete with a dose of film noir, and a bit of humor. With a supporting cast of the Goofball Brothers, Reed’s not too bright neighbors, and Cal, Reed’s computer geek friend, This Doesn’t Happen In The Movies is detective noir akin to Reeds cinematic hero, Humphrey Bogart.

The plot development was too slow for me, I prefer my mysteries faster paced, but noir normally tends to slow the pace down.

Even allowing for that, I often wanted to slap Reed on the back of his head, for not figuring things out faster. Thats not a good sign, so I might just skip the rest of the series unless I can brave mysefl into readig another one while trying to fall asleep.

Rating : 2.75/5

Brajesh's Review : Mumbai Confidential

Mumbai Confidential: Good Cop, Bad Cop is one of the best graphic novels that I have read, in a very long time.

The book uses all the power of graphic art to bring the narrative alive. More often than not in Graphic Novels, the style ends up hampering the story. This book is an excellent example of how the style can add to and amplify a story.

The novel uses 3 different graphic styles to distinguish the three time lines and one doesn’t get confused with the flashbacks and interludes.

The story by Saurav Mohapatra, is a crime drama set in 80's-90's Mumbai of encounter cops, underworld dons and dirty film producers. The plot twist is inspired by “Zanjeer” and the story isn’t particularly inspiring, but the brilliant use of graphic components makes this a must read.

Rating : 4 / 5

Also Read : Kim's Review of Mumbai Confidential

Kim's Review : Mumbai Confidential

Mumbai Confidential: Good Cop, Bad Cop was first released in 2013 in hardcover. Its the paperback version that has just been released. Written and illustrated by a duo from the ill fated "Virgin Comics" venture (I loved Snakewoman and Devi and felt quite bad when the venture was disbanded) Saurav Mohapatra (Devi, Witchblade) & Vivek Shinde (Snakewoman, Project : Kalki)

The star of this Noir Graphic Novel, is most definitely the city of Mumbai/Bombay. While not as painstakingly described as in The Anti-Social Network, Mumbai Confidential could not have been set anywhere other than Bombay of the 80's and 90's.

There's a good storyline going, although the story moves back and forth in time quite a bit. The illustrations fit in well with the story with the shifts in monochrome to colour fitting into the progress of the story.

The story centers around Mumbai Cop Arjun Kadam and his "Encounter Specialist" team. Since he dies at the end of the story (or rather the beginning of the book), you knpw that if there is Part 2 of Mumbai Confidential, then it will be with a different hero and a different set of characters.

This is not the kaleidoscopically colourful Devi / Snakewoman, colour is used sparingly in this novel. The art work is nowhere close to Craig Thompson's Habibi, but it is nowhere near as abysmal as Ramayan 3392 AD either.

Its an easy read and very atmospheric. An 80's crime thriller brought to life as a story board, would be the most appropriate description to me.

Rating : 3.5 / 5

Kim's Review : The Bad Boys of Bokaro Jail

"The Bad Boys of Bokaro Jail" is the scariest book I have read in an extremely long time. No, it isn't a Horror Story. Its the Reality of the terror, that is the judicial + media pressure + police system in play in our country today.

When those 2 young girls were imprisoned for one stray status update on their private facebook pages, the whole country took offense, but was it really the whole country? Would the girls have received public support if they lived in a small town in North India instead of Mumbai?

A lot of people talk about 2 India's - and in all our postings and travels across India, we have seen the disparity - whether financial, educational, status of women, access to basic amenities, etc.

What happens when someone from the affluent English speaking, well educated India, gets trapped within the legal system in small town Bokaro in the Hindi Heartland of Jharkand in India? This is exactly what happened to Chetan Mahajan.

It was such a tiny case, that it barely found a mention in the National news or even the English news. The only reason, I even came to know about this incident is "Blue Salt" an imprint established by investigative journalist and author, S Hussain Zaidi, dedicated to crime and noir, co-published by Penguin which has just published his book "The Bad Boys of Bokaro Jail".

Chetan has an MBA from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University (after one in India) and having spent a couple of years in the US, he is currently the Head of HCL Learning – the learning division of HCL Infosystems Ltd.

However, before joining HCL, he had joined Everonn Coaching Institutes and that is when the events in this book transpired.

According to Chetan, he was barely 3 months into the company (he joined them because Dubai based Gems Group had bought Everonn and seemed to want to turn it around and the skill sets that they needed in senior management, matched his experience and interests) when a few teachers in the Bokaro branch of the coaching institute had suddenly jumped ship to their competition and while substitutes were arranged, the parents of their students wanted their money back immediately.

Chetan headed to Bokaro to reassure the parents that they would all get their money back, but as the seniormost employee on location, the parents caught him, handed him over to the police and wrote out a police complaint against him.

All of this happened on 23 Dec 2012, a Sunday, when banks weren't working and subsequently the courts were on 8-day holiday, so after 24 hours in a police station, he is transferred to a jail for under trials, where he languishes for a month before being released.

The book talks about his experience with corruption at multiple levels, fear of the unknown, rage against his employers, and frustration at the system and its workings. While he does his best to stay positive by exercising, running, reading and remembering his children, the anger and frustration are too much to bear at times.

He ends up spending a month in jail inspite of the best efforts of his family and the institute refunding 100% of the money to almost all the parents. During this time he gets to know some of the other people in jail and does mention a few of their stories here too.

While, the premise and setting is similar, the book is nowhere close to Jeffery Archers Prison Diaries. Yet it is haunting for its brutal exposure of a hapless individual trapped in the Indian legal system by circumstances.

This story is one of those that will continue to haunt me for quite a few years to come. While I myself got out of the Corporate Rat Race a couple of years ago, my husband is still a part of it and being in the telecom industry there are a lot of cases (serious & nuisance) that are filed against the company daily. The telecom industry is often held responsible for issuing sim cards to shooters and terrorists (because the system can trace sim cards but not guns and bombs) - the charge? not conducting adequate background checks and not recognising govt issued id cards as forgeries. So yes, it scares me that he can be jailed on trumped up charges and falsely assigned blame for an incident he may not even be aware of.

All one can do is keep doing the right thing (this alone is no guarantee to not having a case filed against you) trust in God and keep ones fingers crossed that we never have to deal with a situation like this personally.

The larger problem in the country however remains : If someone of Chetans background, family standing (army contacts etc), educational & financial background can be treated like this, what hope is there for the uneducated and the poor who are trapped in this system?

Rating : I can't rate this book fairly at this point of time.

Kim's Review : Stardust by Joseph Kanon

A completely different genre of writing, that I quite enjoyed. So, I have to thank this year's JLF for bringing Author Joseph Kanon into my world and into our library.

Set in 1945 Hollywood. At the end of the war and just before the country was torn apart by Communist leaning suspicions. This book is a beautiful tribute to Hollywood Noir

Hollywood, 1945. Ben Collier has just arrived from war-torn Europe to find his brother has died in mysterious circumstances. Why would a man with a beautiful wife, a successful movie career, and a heroic past choose to kill himself? While I have watched many Hollywood Noir films, this was the first book I read written in this style. Joseph Kanon is so evocative, that I could actually visualise each scene as though he was painting the movie just for me - his reader. That's how powerful the visualisation in the book is - rich with details and atmosphere, it was a genuine pleasure to read this book.

While the story might not move fast enough for some, the true beauty and essence of this book is in its style and form rather than in the tale itself.

There are so many real life names from Hollywood and their movies that are referenced in Stardust, so a film junkie would absolutely LOVE this book, but it can also be apprecaited by anyne who has absolutely no knowledge of the movie industry too. that is the brilliance of Joseph Kanon.

A must read for sure.

Rating: 4 / 5