Book Review — The Dark Road by Mayur Didolkar

A beautiful young athlete goes camping in Pune and ends up dead. Her rich industrialist mentor hires a super-smart private detective, Prasanna Killedar, to investigate. Who would want to beat a young girl to death? In this fast-paced whodunit, evidence can lie and everyone has something to hide.

My take on this book –

Before getting into details of the content, don’t be surprised if this book is not found in book stores or in Kindle store. This book has been published by Juggernaut Books who have their own eBook reading platform(www.juggernaut.in) which is accessible from desktop, tablet and mobile through their app. I bought this book a while ago but completely forgot and while digging through my eBook library discovered this again.

The prologue caught my attention and within a few pages into the book, got hooked completely. It is an absolute page turner and a very racy thriller. The story unfolds while moving back and forth in time, introducing all characters along side.

The protagonist Prasanna is a retired ACP who is now running her own Private Detective agency, through whom the writer gives details of how crime case investigation procedures are generally carried. The victim Sanju is a hiker, marathon runner, and the writer himself being a marathon runner, gives readers authentic details on marathons and hikes.

Most of the characters are grey but you still end up sympathizing for the situations in which they are caught. Dysfunctional families and how that effects the kids and their behavior is captured very nicely. As with any thriller, the reader gets hints and clues on who could be the killer, and there were far too many hints which give away the suspense in the second half.

Sanju’s sister Amrutha, her backstory and details related to her lack logic. Also, the motive for killing doesn’t look strong enough by the time the story ends. If the logic part can be overlooked, the book does a pretty decent job in holding the reader’s attention till the end. The story makes for a good Bollywood thriller, nonetheless.

My rating

3.5/5.