Book review: Harappa – Curse of the Blood River by Vineet Bajpai







Book review: Harappa – Curse of the Blood River by Vineet Bajpai


A fast paced thriller with parallel story tracks running across the book. The present day story reflects and runs parallel to another one from 1700 BC – a time when the seemingly planned cities and seemingly advanced civilizations of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro were flourishing.


The story has a lot of suspense and buildup to keep the reader on the edge-of-the-seat. The book has a captivating beginning and the author does not lose his grip on the reader till the very end.


The story telling is excellent with the reader kept at the edge of his seat in a quick succession series of events and action unfolding without a break. The pace of the book is maintained and the story does not slow down.  


The parallel story telling format builds the story bit by bit on both fronts, increasing your anticipation as you jump from one story to another, knowing fully well that the stories are running in parallel and expecting characters to behave in a certain manner or wondering which character reflects which one from the other track.


The author has an interesting cast of characters to play with in both parallel tracks and the reader is intrigued by most of the characters as they try to figure out their true colors and also guess the traitor (of course, there is always a traitor). Some of you might just about guess the traitor while most wont. I guessed the traitor early on by was sure about him/her a few pages before the revelation simply because the author stopped mentioning him/her although he/she was very much present on the scene. How could he/she be missing in action … during an action sequence. That’s what confirmed my suspicion on him/her.


The Book Cover is interesting with the contrast drawn between the Harappan times and modern-day Banaras, using pictorial as well as color contrast. It surely does not give away the story but the visual appeal is definitely there.  


I really liked the book and looking forward to the next part of the series. I would easily rate this book 5/5 except for a few things that annoyed me. The overall book has raised the bar so much that the ordinarily ignored annoyances could no longer be annoyed. I might just give feedback to the author directly on those points. For all practical purpose, the book can be easily rated 4.5 to 5 out of 5. Go for it.


This book is definitely the beginning of a series or a trilogy. I look forward to reading the next one in the series soon. It is a promising plot line and opens up doors for a couple of books more in the series. Also, the story will move further and the action will go to various international locales.


 


Rating 4/5


This Book Review/Interview is a part of The Readers Cosmos Book Review Program and Book Promotions. To know more, visit  http://thereaderscosmos.blogspot.in/

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