Book Review: The Bankster by Ravi Subramanian

First look at the cover from a distance and you can be forgiven to think of this as a Batman Book. The cover draws inspiration (my personal thoughts) from the Dark Knight poster. With the book in hand, you realize its different but the appreciation for the cover design and styling does not go. I have written about the cover designs of Indian novels improving over the past year or so and this is yet another example of a superb cover design.

The novel starts out with a bang … CIA, arms pilferage to terrorists, blood diamonds … and then contrasts to another incident where a old couple in kerala is caught up in the vicious trap of the local police and their son goes through the pain of seeing his father being humiliated and then moving away from the country where a couple of years later, he is a victim of a nuclear disaster.

After this 'start-with-a-bang', the story sort of fizzles out …

The author then begins to introduce different characters of a bank in Mumbai and the story seems to describe the target-meeting-frenzy, office politics, extra marital affairs and greed of individuals and the conflicts of those who don't fall in line with the others. A parallel track about a nuclear power plant and protest against its commissioning is also there; with the involvement of politicians and powerful people. The bang at the start is forgotten.

And then a person dies. Written off as an accident and soon forgotten. There are some minor events happening to bank (giving you some faint feeling that it is a build up to a major event; but no direct linkages shown) and the protest against the nuclear power plant is moving on.

I was expecting a 'fast paced eventful' story and was disappointed. The story moves at a steady pace as if describing the protest and life in a bank without really any criminal activity happening (only alluding to it very very indirectly).

And then another murder(s) and then another one and the story picks up pace … with the active involvement of a new character who turns out to become the protagonist of the story (although appearing half way thro the novel)

After a slow and steady first half … the novel turns pacy and racy in the second half becoming almost an unputdownable. The story converges in the end and all the loose ends are tied together. Several of the small unimportant details become suddenly significant and play an important role in typing them up together.

The climax is really good and the suspense is fantastic. This could have been a script of a bollywood suspense movie and I wish someone picks up this book to convert it into a movie. At least the masses who haven't read this book will get to see a good suspense thriller after a long time.

One good thing about the book was something which relieved me of my biggest worry about Ravi's novels. All his novels have been related to Banking and I was wary of reading a novel full of banking terms and fundas. Thankfully, this novel does not drown you in an ocean of banking industry jargon. Encourages me to pick up other novels by Ravi.

One last point … the book review copy I received was signed by the author. A very good read and an author signed copy is a nice combination and I will cherish this one for long. This is one of the very few author signed novels I have and this will actually be the best author signed novel that I have :)

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