RIVER OF LIFE, RIVER OF DEATH by VICTOR MALLET

I first read this extraordinary book about the state of one of India’s most sacred rivers a year ago, and was bowled over by the research as well as the empathy the writer shows towards India. Although lamenting the damage done to the Ganga/Ganges – this most holy & revered …

BEAU DEATH by Peter Lovesey

Everyone needs a sister like mine. A voracious reader, Jane generously shares her books, her reading lists, her favourite authors, and has introduced me to many good reads over the years. Latest discovery, via kid sister, is Peter Lovesey, whom I am only just now discovering, decades after everyone else. …

HOUSE OF SPIES by Daniel Silva

Daniel Silva’s latest book in the brilliant Gabriel Allon series takes up where “The Black Widow” left off, though you absolutely do not have to have read the former to enjoy the later. Gabriel, the thoroughly likeable, decent, honourable man who heads up the Israeli Secret Service has unfinished business …

WHISPERINGS FROM BEYOND by Lakshmi Narayan

What an amazing world we live in. You know someone for almost 30 years, and only now discover the hidden, almost-mystical side to them. My Mumbai-based friend Lakshmi Narayan has just published her second book (& here’s a link to my review of her debut novel) and what a revelation …

A NECESSARY EVIL by Abir Mukherjee

Reading Abir Mukherjee’s “A Necessary Evil” was a fine balancing act between dying to know what happened next, and dreading the approaching end of the book. This absolute cracker of a novel is a fine and worthy successor to Mr. Mukherjee’s first novel “A Rising Man“, and it is with …