Game of death
The Premier Murder League is another in the series of Metro Reads by Penguin. I had read one Metro Reads book in the past, a wonderful debut novel, Dreams in Prussian Blue by Paritosh Uttam. The book was a letdown due to its poor production quality — cheap paper and unreadable font. The same, more or less, continues with the new collection, with only a font size improving slightly.
The story has an interesting premise and begins on a promising note. The Union Sports Minister, S.N. Rao is murdered and DCP Ravi and ACP Rahul are brought in to investigate the case. They receive a tip from a friend in the media connecting the case to three other murders — one that appeared to be a case of natural death of another Board member; another, the death of a nurse who worked for a rich family; and the burning of a woman, a middle-class teacher who had problems with her playboy husband.
What they unravel is a ruthless game of supremacy, they unearth the plan to destroy and kill anyone who comes in the way of the ambition to set up a cricket tournament. It’s the world of greed, power, jealously and there are no boundaries.
The investigation into each case is interesting and the plot moves ahead at a steady pace. However, what begins on a promising note sadly swerves off the track. The treatment of the characters is weak, a pattern evolves that makes the story predictable and makes you want to stop. Getting through the last 100 pages or so is a struggle. You already know who the murderer is, the rest of it is about getting confessions from conspirers in the murder who happen to be watchmen, drivers, milkmen and employers of the deceased. The world isn’t such a horrible place after all where almost everyone conspires to murder somebody without asking questions. If it were, it would be a very dangerous society we’re living in. The media is non-present, one would have expected more court drama but the court appears to be adjourned for the book. The characters are undeveloped, they all talk in the same way, have similar problems and secrets, barring a couple of them they fail to evoke your interest. The dialogues are dry, restrained and at times forced, even in moments of high drama.
What you get here is a story that could have been much better with a bit more focus on developing characters, keeping the dialogues real and a better edit that could wean out some of the flat writing and make it crisper and more fast-paced.
A word of encouragement for the author, who at least intended to tell an interesting story, which I guess got lost among many drafts and editorial changes. Fun, feisty, fast read this is not.
Ahmed Faiyaz is the author of Love, Life & all that Jazz... and Another Chance
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