Natural cynic that I am, when I read on a book cover a comment like “Make sure you have three clear hours when you pick this book up, because you won’t stop reading till you’ve finished it”, I’m ashamed to say that my first reaction is to mutter, “Yeah right” or something to that effect.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
“Penumbra” is totally un-put-down-able and I have just spent the last 2 hours, when I should’ve been writing an overdue article, absolutely devouring the book.
And, for the record, totally not guessing whodunit.
So, yes, indeed. Make sure you have a nice clear afternoon, and settle down and enjoy a cracking murder mystery.
The book is set initially in Calcutta, and then in rural West Bengal, in an almost Agatha Christie-like setting.
A house party gathered for a celebration.
A murder.
Everyone trapped in the house together, isolated by a storm of almost Biblical proportions that brings down the phone lines, cause the power to flicker, makes the roads undrive-able…
At one point in the book I got too clever by half and thought I’d figured it all out.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Again.
I hadn’t a clue, right until the very end.
(And don’t worry, there are no plot-spoilers here. Wouldn’t do that to you.)
The novel is told in the first person, through the mouth of Prakash Roy, a freelance journalist – and that, possibly, is the only v-e-r-y slight quibble I have with the author. Prakash’s being a journalist is mentioned throughout the book, but he doesn’t seem to have much investigative get-up-and-go, and is content, rather, to serve as the foil to other people’s deductions.
But it doesn’t detract from him as a character at all – which is why I said it was a mere quibble.
Good read.
Good plot.
Thoroughly recommended.
If you would like to buy the book – and it’s a great read – it couldn’t be easier.
Just click on one of the links below, & you’ll be on your way.
I was sent this book to review by the publishers, Fingerprint!