A Brutal Hand by Ravi Subramanian & Jigs Ashar (Book Review: 4.25*/5) !!!

 

20^th Book of 2021

Ravi Subramanian’s new venture called “Shortz Thrills Uninterrupted” is a very nice gesture to promote other skilled authors who can write good thrillers in as less words as possible. He has been himself the face of Indian thrilling world for more than a decade and frankly speaking, I got into the world of suspense and thriller through his banking novels. I must say that I remember every experience of reading his books and have learnt so much about literature through the perfection he has in blending elements into his stories. This time, the book I have read under this venture is “A Brutal Hand” which is co-written with Jigs Ashar, the author who has written individual books too but getting featured here seems to be doing wonders with his increasing fan following.

 

The book comes with a tag line that says, “There’s no escape”. The book is summed up in around 175 pages and I must say this is one of the shortest thrillers I have read which has appealed me. Kudos to Westland Publication. It kept me grasped and intrigued right from the first page. Author has written a perfect page-turner which makes you want to know how the investigation will proceed and how the killer will be identified. The narration is quite good as even though the story keeps moving on a fast pace, you find it bit easy to go hand-in-hand with it. You never feel the complexities in the plot even when this is a thriller genre book. I don’t think there could have been a better way to write a short thriller than this.

 

All the chapters are so nicely divided here that you can imagine each of them as different scenes and visualize it like frame changes in movies and web-series these days. The characters are very nicely woven that you can relate with each one of them. Even when there are few characters who are spooky, you still feel that you are with them, and you can feel what they are going through. There are many worlds involved here – like psychiatrist, jail, police, rehab etc. You will love how the character from different world gets connected to each other when the police start investigating the case. I really found it very appropriate and precise.

 

Throughout the story, I could keep guessing the murderer in different people but when the unexpected happened in the climax, I really got very happy to be proved wrong as it tells you that the book you picked up has beaten your perceptions. I just felt that author could have kept the interrogation round little more descriptive and helped us understand the psyche and emotions of the killer in a better way. Reading this climax, it felt as if we are just told who the killer is in a Breaking News format and why did he kill the victims in just a formal manner. There should have been a Longz version of this part even if the whole story is written in the shortz format.

 

Overall, this book will place Jigs Ashar in the top list and you will find the presence of Ravi Subramanian in this story for sure. I give this book 4.25 stars out of 5. This book has the potential to be adapted into a web-series format due to its fast-paced and intelligent investigation elements.

PURCHASE THE BOOK HERE

 

Thanks.

 

WRITING BUDDHA