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Reviewing Ashwin Sanghi's The Krishna Key

I have been planning to write a blog on how poorly researched in Indian fiction nowadays. Most of the authors are drawing from their own life or environment. And its a sheer co-incidence that the wonderful people at Blogadda sent me this book - The Krishna Key by Ashwin Sanghi for a review.  This book is rich in research and has a depth that is amazing. The writer has made an enormous effort and it has not gone unnoticed. I just wish that more Indian authors follow the suit.

So that is the prime selling point of this book. I now go back to the start of it. From where, all impressions of books start for us. At least for me.  I don't know what it is with  the people at Westland, they come up with some great and always bluish covers. This one, too is brilliantly designed, with white and golden embossing on the cover. Since I mentioning the name of the publisher here, I must add that in just few years, Westland has catapulted itself at the top among the best of the publishers in our country. They have encouraged authors like Ashwin and Amish Tripathi, into new uncharted territories of Indian literature. Really, kudos to these guys. Their books are packaged well, have good content and apparently they work hard for their books too.

The story is about incarnation of Krishna, and a treasure on whose hunt are both the good and the bad guys. I am not going to write much on the story, for you got to read it to relish it. There is murder, suspense, mythology, action, adventure, everything. It connects you to the stories of Mahabharta, you have probably heard several times in your childhood. The background character of Krishna and his life is wonderfully worded and nicely detailed.  Then there are some masterful illustrations that add to the excitement factor. These illustrations have been effectively used and designed well.

  Unfortunately, I found the book to be slow and predictable too. No doubt, the characters especially Ravi Mohan and Priya are brilliantly etched. But still, that very thing makes it too Ken Follett and Dan Brown. People on a treasure chase, with police hunting them and villains trapping them. Heard it before? Well me too.

So its a fabulous book overall, considering the fact that I rarely enjoy Indian fiction as much as I did this time around. Plus, the genre of the book (hey its just a suggestion) should have been historical fiction rather than a thriller. The book is also well priced at 250, worth the money and time you will spend on it. I have been meaning to add Ashwin's Chanakya Chant to the library for a long time now and finally having read one of his books, I feel I should do that sooner than later.

Happy Reading people

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at http://www.blogadda.com. Participate now to get free books!

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Comments

Sharat Pandey said…
Read the review, it was as worst as the book, every thing is assumed in the book without any possible reason, one should not encourage this type of work, actually it was giving a feeling of reading a cheap footpath novel, not a good work, at least not to be connected anyway with "Amish Tripathy's " work
October 3, 2012 at 10:54 AM
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