Guerrillas

Book Name : Guerrillas
Author : V.S.Naipaul


What is it about :
A fictionalised account of a true story set in the heady days of "Black Power", "Civil Radicals" and "Liberation" - the story of a British girl in her late twenties in search of life's meaning and spiritual adventures, landed into a "commune" on a Caribbean island and mixed company with her radical boyfriend's circle and her fateful encounters with the island's activist leader. Her personal journey was set against the backdrop of an island in turmoil (poverty, near anarchy and feeble governance), in an ex-pat community broiled in uncertainty where they "rum-punched" the day away and the book detailed the emotional interplays between the British girl and a whole cast of ideological figure heads.

Some thoughts after having read the book : Quite a struggle at first to get stuck into the book and to make heads and tails about the settings and characters as the story line appeared veiled and fogged out - hallmarks of another Nobel Prize Winner, may be ? Good thing the Author wrote a Preface and I did a bit of research half way through the book of Gail Anne Benson and her association with Michael X and the story of her eventual horrendous murder. Straight away, the story was illuminated and I followed with clarity of where the Author was taking the readers. The build-up to the climax and anti-climax towards the end was absolutely riveting and a master stroke as the disillusioned Brit approached her fatal fall and the subsequent simultaneous denial and acknowledgment of her existence and disappearance.

Would I recommend this book to you :
Full of un-fathomable dialogues and drawn out accounts of ex-pat lives on a Caribbean island - rum-punching, strolling on a beach, being served dinner and generally lying around on Mexican hammocks in Bermuda shorts ... Exciting, interesting the book was not but the last 50 pages saved the day - the pace quickened, the plot focused and the story zero-ed in on the tragic end. It was a bit like having watched the first 2 hours of a lousy West-End Play but the scenes, actors and directors in the Final Act came together Big-Time and you walked out of the theatre thankfully satisfied - phew, not a waste of time after all.

The Vault

Book Name : The Vault
Author : Peter Lovesey


What is it about :
A good old "whodunit" with a twist of the Frankenstein legend thrown in as an entertaining distraction. With all the suspects and red herrings at large and so our no nonsense Detective Peter Diamond ran around the blocks in Bath (!) to find the person(s) with the smoking gun. So who killed the art dealer and whacked a policeman unconscious ? Could it be the gentle American professor whose wife had gone missing and later found to have checked-in to The Ritz in Paris ? Or did the art-craze city councillor have a few skeletons in his cupboard ? What about the drug addict nephew who inherited a fortune from his deceased uncle who just happened to be the last person known to be present at the scene of the crime ? Caught between his family life, career prospects and being led down a few blind alleys, could our inspector figure it out ? Read on and take a ride with him and his British wit.

Some thoughts after having read the book : Tantalising clues they might have been, but I was not particularly led astray by those colorful, dubious, ignorant characters in the line-up. Perhaps it was just the thought that surely it had to be one of the "usual suspects", otherwise the whole book would have been a farce - a common "problem" in a whodunit. Nevertheless, the chases around Bath and the British humour jogged some fond memories and nostalgia about good old England ...

Would I recommend this book to you :
Pick up the book for its wit, pace, English-ness and get taken for a ride through the life in a day of our inspector - enjoy.