Thursday, October 13, 2011

Book review: Love on the Rocks




Author: Ismita Tandon Dhankher
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Pages: 224
Price: 150
Publishers: Penguin
ISBN Number: 9780143414681










About the book:


Is it Miss Marple at her post teens, or is Sancha bitten by the Marple bug? Or is she somehow related to the prim moustache Hercule Poirot? Ishimta Tandon Dhankher seems to wink at me from the pages and like a frisky girl nudges me to read on. The book unfolds a story of a boy (he seems to live mostly in some dark celluloid version of life- lovelorn and pathetically lonely). A perfect instance of domestic child abuse and a perfect reason for a psychopath to be born- I suppose-in fact I was even expecting Fredrick, Sheldon and Stephen King to show me some magical thrill and give me a cold shiver. Nope, keep the reader guess as to what is waiting beyond the thin veil.

It is not on the shores but on board where twist and turns meet you face blank. One dead in a meat locker keeps the curious cat Sancha thinking. It has not been a year- since she is married- and she loves once again- oh! Of course she is still to get over those butterflies in her stomach when spending time with her new husband Aaron Andrews. She has fallen for the majestic Sea Hyena. But for the discovery of the cook’s corpse in the meat lock- all seemed well in her world of twenty four men. When Sancha is scribbling across her personal list of suspects, ranking her humour and even her wit set in the middle of crossroads,   officer Raghav Shridhar seem to be the last man to untie the knotted up suspense and hook the lurking killer breathing over everyone’s shoulders.

Ishita has intelligently kept her decanter drama free- rather there is a sweet residue of tongue in the cheek humour- in the way she portrays the characters one after the other. I can presume the lady has done quite a lot of human glazing and the book has benefited from it. If she knows how to uncover a death report, she knows how to pull down the curtains over the suspicion by baking a seemingly coincidental theft. Sea-farer stories seemed tales of the bygone days- till I chanced upon Love making dangerous attempts to balance itself on jutting rocks. Am I confusing between something literal and figurative?  You got to read up and invite me to a coffee party next time. I am open to discussions- what’s the venue this time- I hope it’s right on the deck of Sea Hyena-(without a corpse, if you don’t mind).






About the author:




Ismita Tandon Dhankher likes to call herself, 'A lesser known Poetess' http://applestrudle-dollz.blogspot.com/  and is very passionate about poetry. She graduated from Sophia college and went on to pursue an MBA degree. After a brief but highly successful stint in the Forex division of Thomas Cook, Mumbai, she decided writing was her true calling and gave up her management career to sail the high sea's with
her sailor husband and became a full-time author.

    


Further Details:

FB page: Love-on-the-Rocks
                    
Twitter: ismitatandon




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