Published 1st December 2022 in paperback and 1st January 2023 in ebook by Thomas and Mercer.
From the cover of the book:
On the dark streets of Mumbai, the paths of a missing dancer, a serial killer, and an inspector with a haunted past converge in an evocative thriller about lost love and murderous obsession.After years of dancing in Mumbai’s bars, Tara Mondal was desperate for a new start. So when a client offered her a life-changing payout to indulge a harmless, if odd, fantasy, she accepted. The setup was simple: wear a blue-sequined saree, enter a crowded railway station, and escape from view in less than three minutes. It was the last time anyone saw Tara.
Thirteen years later, Tara’s lover, Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput, is still grappling with her disappearance as he faces a horrifying new crisis: on the city’s outskirts, women’s dismembered bodies are being unearthed from shallow graves. Very little links the murders, except a scattering of blue sequins and a decade’s worth of missing persons reports that correspond with major festivals.
Past and present blur as Arnav realizes he’s on the trail of a serial killer and that someone wants his investigation buried at any cost. Could the key to finding Tara and solving these murders be hidden in one of his cold cases? Or will the next body they recover be hers?
***********
When Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput is called to the scene of a gruesome find at a building site, something about the appearance of the corpse reminds him of a case from many years before. As more bodies turn up at the same site, in a similar condition, he knows he is onto something. But his superiors have little interest in pursuing cold cases, especially when an investigation would hold up the plans of the rich and powerful in busy Mumbai.
Arnav, haunted by his childhood and the disappearance of his girlfriend Tara thirteen years ago, cannot let matters rest, even if there is very little to go on other than a hunch and the blue sequins found with the bodies. He is sure there is a serial killer out there murdering young women, and as he tracks down the clues left in dusty old files around the police districts of the city, he realises not only that he is right about this killer that preys on the vulnerable around times of celebration, but that someone is doing their best to stop him pursuing the murderer.
Is Tara's disappearance related to this case? Could she also be buried in a shallow grave somewhere in Mumbai? Arnav will not stop until he finds out and brings the guilty party to justice.
The Blue Bar is an exciting thriller that drops you right into the heart of the chaos of Mumbai for the tense cat and mouse game of tenacious Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput's hunt for a prolific serial killer.
The story moves back and forth between flashes from the past of Arnav and multiple other important characters (who shall remain nameless for fear of spoilers), building up all the background you need alongside the threads of Arnav's investigation in the present. A lot of characters come at you thick and fast, and set against the chaos of a city like Mumbai this means it takes a little while to get into the rhythm of the story, and get a grip on who is who. However, although the diverse threads may seem far apart at the beginning, Biswas keeps them all under tight control and the storylines weave nicely together until they come together in a bloody climax.
Arnav is a complex character, and we know from the outset that he has been shaped by the death of his sister when he was a teenager, and the disappearance of his night-club dancer girlfriend Tara thirteen years ago, which makes him stick doggedly to the search for the killer even when it is quite clear that important people want him to stop. Intriguingly, Biswas also makes sure we know the fateful history of the killer that has moulded him in to twisted person he has become, even if you cannot forgive him for the brutal acts he is compelled to carry out, and I very much enjoyed the way the two characters play off against each other as Arnav painstakingly puts all the pieces of the mystery together.
On the whole, the story is fast paced, suspenseful, and holds your attention well, although I felt that the romantic strand of the book needs more substance to balance out the pull of the more macabre plotlines. Tara's character lacked depth, and Arnav's mooning around over her frustratingly slows the action down for much of the first part of the book. I found myself longing for the story to pick up the threads of the more interesting side of the investigation in those moments, but will admit that Biswas does use the Arnav-Tara relationship to move the plot forward quite cleverly.
What Biswas does do spectacularly well is to immerse you in the melting pot of Mumbai's streets and use the stark contrasts between rich and poor, powerful and powerless to absolute perfection. The descriptions of every location these characters visit is beautifully vivid and often uncomfortably evocative. I really enjoyed the way she employs the themes of corruption, abuse and depravity, mixing together the super wealthy, Bollywood celebrities, and the dark underbelly inhabited by the criminal fraternity in a way that explores how money and fame can buy you everything you ever desire - unless you have someone like Arnav on your trail. There is some lovely misdirection too, that keeps you from guessing where the story eventually goes.
This is the first part in a new series by Biswas featuring Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput, which has the potential to be rather addictive. I look forward to Arnav's next crime busting adventure.
The Blue Bar is available to preorder in ebook, paperback and audio formats.
Thank you to Damyanti Biswas for sending me a Netgalley link to this book in teturn for an honest review.
About the author:
No comments:
Post a Comment