I love murder mysteries and the cover, despite the title, lured me to the book. The man with a knife bellowed, that the story was, a thriller.

BOOK DETAILS

Name: The Curse Of Kuldhara
Author: Richa S. Mukherjee
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 335
Availability: Amazon (Buy it here)
Rating: 4/5

TITLE & SUBTITLES

The title gave me a supernatural feeling. Though I’m okay with reading about curses and paranormal beings sometimes, I picked up this book because it felt mysterious, too.

LANGUAGE

The language was easy and simple with plenty of new words to learn. I bravely used a dictionary and Google.

BLURB

The story revolves around the detective from Kanpur Koofiya Pvt. Ltd (which I have yet to read) by the same author. Prachand Tripathi along with his wife, Vidya Tripathi, runs a respectable detective agency and helps a lot of people solve cases (sensible or otherwise) whether they paid or not. While Vidya is looking at ways to expand the business, Prachand seems to be spending more time helping his father in their family-owned shop.

One fine day, they get a call to oversee a movie as the script centered around them and their famous celebrity case. Their presence was vital so that they could offer suggestions for authenticity. Though Vidya is excited, Prachand is in a dilemma whether to accept the proposal by Paramveer Khattar, the model-looking spoilt brat, crook and member of a political party perpetually involved in scams. Despite the mention of curses and havelis, Prachand decides to accept the offer and they travel along with his uncle Dinanath and childhood friend, Yatish to the shoot location in Rajasthan. When they reach the haveli, they are unpleasantly surprised.

As the days pass, they get to know things that opposed their expectations. Also, the death, of one of the actors, creates chaos in the cursed city of Kuldhara. To make matters worse, Prachand was also poisoned, but survived. Everyone is guilty, of something. But who is the real murderer?

You should read the book to find out how Prachand (with multiple theories) and Inspector Maya Gupta nab the culprit of the weird happenings around the haveli.

REASONS I LIKED THE BOOK

*I love the mystery around the curse.
*The language used was very prim and proper English while also being totally ‘Indian’.
*I was tickled when Bhutaari Baba said words like shall, restless, online appointment, clients, digitally savvy, etc.
*The book consisted of 64 short chapters which made it easy to read.
*The glossary at the end was the best part though some more words and phrases, from the book, could be added there.

AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT

Only the editing. For example, Dinanath (more prominent in the story) and his older brother (Prachand’s father) Dinbandhu had similar names, so, sometimes Dinanath was erroneously mentioned as Dinbandhu in a few places.

FINAL THOUGHTS

While dropping the kids to school, I always spot a cow tied to a tree at the side of the road. I imagined Hirwa. Perhaps it was throwing tantrums just like Hirwa and was punished that way. Anyway, I love murder mysteries. This one was so well thought of that I applaud the author for the same. It seems that this book is going to be a major web series soon, so, looking forward to it, too.

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