14 Hours - An Insider's Account of the Taj Attack

Just finished reading this book by Ankur Chawla - I had expected a gripping saga of the greatest attack on Indian soil since independence but not totally disappointed. He has tried his best to give a nice narrative account of his experience inside the Taj Mahal Hotel in Colaba, Mumbai and succeeded also to some extent. It is obviously his first attempt at writing a book and being a young hotelier I will give full credit to his composure during the worst travail of his life. There are some genuine attempts at humour and it works very well. Goodreads 3/5

Turbaned Tornado

This book "Turbaned Tornado" is a biography of the famous Indian marathoner who ran a marathon at 100 years, Fauja Singh. The writer Kushwant Singh is not the same famous Indian journalist and writer of the same name. It is a nice narrative of the early life of Fauja Singh, how he travelled to London after the death of his loving wife and started running marathons at the age of 89 when most of us would rather be more comfortable walking with a stick!! Fauja is an indomitable spirit and his farmers' genes help him in becoming a rare sportsman and brand ambassador more famous than sportspersons three or four generations younger than him. His timing of 5.20 hours at the age of 94 is the stuff made of legends. He was denied the Guiness world record for being the oldest marathoner, due to lack of his birth documents.  Fauja Singh is truly a great sportsman of India and reading his biography is very refreshing.  Goodreads 5/5

The Heart of the Dales

Heart of the Dales is my second one of the Dales series by Gervase Phinn. He continues with his stories about his life as a school inspector in the Yorkshire Dales. There are good characters and bad characters but never evil characters, and always it is the children who steal the thunder in his eyes. He liberally sprinkles Yorkshire accent to lend variety to his stories and it is the lesser fortunate children who become heroes. These are nice feel good stories, light hearted, with a dash of the typical British humour thrown in. Stories from small villages reminds one of RK Narayan and his Malgudi village stories. Goodreads 5/5 

The Way Through the Woods

Just finished reading "The Way Through the Woods" by Colin Dexter, my first one of him. It is an Inspector Morse mystery. It is a mystery about a sudden disappearance of a Swedish maiden in England but the case comes to life fully one year after her exit for whatever reasons. Dexter has a different style of writing compared to others such as Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle etc. in the sense that he keeps on dropping some hints here and there by weaving in and out of the story by juxtaposing with riddles etc. The plot keeps the reader in suspense and I like his interplay with relevant quotes at the beginning of each chapter. I would say that Dexter is a "dexterous" writer in that sense.  Goodreads 3/5

Absolute Power

Absolute Power is a 1997 thriller starring Clint Eastwood, Laura Linney, Gene Hackman among others based on the book by David Baldacci. Clint Eastwood is Luther Whitney a master thief, who goes into the mansion of billionaire Walter Sullivan in order to rob his jewels and cash. While there he witnesses a murder scene involving the President of the United States and Walter's young wife. Walter happens to be a close friend of the President and was in fact responsible for putting him in the White House. The President and Walter's wife are both inebriated and try to have sex but it goes wrong, a scuffle takes place between the two and in the process secret service agents break into the bedroom and fire shot which kills Walter's wife. Meanwhile Luther has witnessed all these and he escapes from there subtly while picking up the pen knife which was used in the scuffle. Luther has a daughter Kate (Laura Linney) who is a public prosecutor but who is also estranged from her father. Meanwhile detective Seth Frank (Ed Harris) starts investigation of the event. Kate agrees to meet her father at a café but while there he is shot at by two people, one of them being secret service agent and another a sharp shooter hired by Walter. Kate is then forced off her car into a cliff which seriously injures her. Luther saves her and is at the hospital when one of the secret service guy tries to kill her there, but Luther intercepts and puts him to rest. The case reaches its conclusion when Luther becomes the stand by driver of Walter and tells him the whole story. Nice gripping movie with good performances by Clint Eastwood and Laura Linney. 

Marathon Man

"Marathon Man" is by Bill Rodgers otherwise known as Boston Billy who won the Boston and New York Marathons 4 times each in the late 70s. Boston Billy has personally autographed this book which was given to my dear friend Bhasker Desai who had ran at this year i.e. 2013 Boston Marathon. Bhasker finished the race and was in the medical tent when the bomb blast took place.

It is a very enchanting and enthralling book with a throbbing narrative in collaboration with Mathew Shepatin. Basically it is an account of his early life and his Boston marathon experience of 1975. The narrative is very interesting in the sense that each chapter starts with his Boston 1975 progress during the race and the later part of the chapter devotes to flashback to his early life as a college student, running with Amby Burfoot who is his original inspiration, his "conscientious objector" status during the Vietnam war, his degree at special education, struggle at getting a job etc. He was a natural born runner with a great capacity for hard work and a body which could take any amount of hard work with very little injuries. The realisation that he could be a top notch marathon runner came to him only during a race with Amby Burfoot in which he raced alongside the great Amby for about 15 miles of a 20 mile race. The seeds of inspiration which Amby sowed in him made him take up competitive racing including marathons. Boston Billy alongwith Frank Shorter, Amby Burfoot and Jeff Galloway were the pioneers of long distance running first in America which then spread to other cities in the world which has since then grown exponentially. His latter attempts at Montreal Olympics of 1976 and thereafter founding a successful running business alongwith his college buddies makes for a good story. It is an excellent book, very inspirational, very nice story of an easy going hardworking American who loves running dearly. Highly recommended for anybody into long distance running. Goodreads 5/5

The Sleeping Doll

I like Jeffery Deaver books because he provides so much of twists, double twists, re-twist, reverse twists to the plot that you actually wonder where it is leading to. His Lincoln Rhyme the master criminologist series were all good books. This one featured Kathryn Dance, interrogator and kinesics expert - a kind of study of body language. Daniel Pell has been incarcerated in Capitola jail for mass murders of a wealthy family, the Croytons of whom he left only little girl behind, who was hiding behind dolls, and hence the name of the book. From the book cover, you may think it is a horror book, but thankfully it is not. Pell manages to get  himself to another facility for interrogation by Dance but in the process he escapes and thereafter the plot starts getting interesting. The cat and mouse game being played between Pell and Dance is intense. To his favour Deaver has kept the interest intact but as expected in his genre, he has sprung many surprises. Dance keeps going back to her basics which is kinesics to break down the real story. Even after the plot ostensibly ended, Deaver has kept going on for a couple of chapters more, thereby intensifying the suspense. For one twists to many, I give Goodreads 4/5