The last third of the book seemed sort of unnecessary.No major mystery suspense to sustain one's interest beyond the first third of the book. This book is marketed as some sort of a crime thriller and it seems like it is quite literally just that- there is crime and the pace of the narrative is thrilling. but everything is almost fully revealed in the second part of the book, which was a let down.

The first third of the book raises a lot of questions and there is an element of suspense as to what is going on etc. There is no real suspense in this book.Mrinal is quite witty and his presence adds some humour to otherwise serious proceedings. There is also Prakash's research guy- Mrinal- with his own mysterious past, who is quite funny and he helps Prakash trace phone records and unearth IP addresses and such.Both Prakash and Seema are honest, smart journalists, who do a great job with following clues and joining the dots. Seema has her own personal tragedy, which she is trying to overcome by immersing herself in her job. Prakash has his own demons to fight from a previous encounter with Naxalites and is gradually making his way back to being a journalist again. Even though there is so much happening as a reader you don't get lost at any point and the story moves along pretty quickly with nice chunks of new information being revealed at strategic points. There are multiple things happening with Prakash and Seema exploring two related but different lines of investigation- one in Ambala and the other in Bandhavgarh. There are multiple themes explored in this book and all of them work well together to create a pretty tight narrative. The premise of the book is interesting- serial killings, which have some similar characteristics and some powerful people people eliminating everyone in the know, makes for quite a gripping read.

Brutal by uday satpathy