Thiruvananthapuram Crime Kadhakal ‘ by Adarsh Madhavankutty is an anthology of eight crime stories which are set in Thiruvananthapuram district. The stories feature Manudev, a rookie Police informer, who helps the investigating officers in unsolved cases.
As mentioned before, almost all stories in these compilation take place in and around Thiruvananthapuram and the cases range from a fresh double homicide (Irattakolapaathakam) to an alleged suicide (Punaranweshanam), which happened years ago. The stories are quite short and almost reads like a police procedural which is hardly half a dozen pages long . So each story has got a single page opening bang (the act), the comparatively longer enquiry sequences (forming the large chunk of each of these stories) and a single page long climax (which is mostly rushed). The anthology tries to cover varied varieties of criminal intents (murder) and their execution, albeit in a highly topical manner.
Coming to the positives, this book is a pretty easy read and if you are a fan of those really short crime stories by the likes of Batten Bose , (which used to come out in the late ninetees), you will definitely like this anthology. The language is pretty simple and devoid of any literary pretensions and this short compilation can be done with in a couple of hours. Some of the stories in this collection are interesting and provides the thrill which is expected out of an anthology of this genre.
On the downside, I wish the writer had put in a little bit of an effort to do away with those really amateurish phrases like ‘ avan bikkine meyaan vittittu..’, which are there in plenty. Though the stories are set in the modern era (there are references to watsapp and modern day gadgets), the writing is such a way that most of the stories end up giving a 80’s-90’s vibe (may be that’s an extremely personal opinion). Some of the stories are extremely predictable, with their motives and execution reminding us of the innumerable investigation stories that came out in the last decade.
On the whole, if you are in the mood to read an anthology of short pulp fiction, you can give this one a try.
-nikhimenon
0 comments:
Post a Comment