Wednesday, February 20, 2019

BOOK REVIEW OF DETECTIVE VIKRAM AND THE PHANTOM

                                                                     
Detective  Vikram and the phantom by  Ram K.Kamaraju  (Prowess Publishing)  is  a book of fourteen stories  in the genre of detective fiction is highly readable, thought provoking,  offers a keen  observation of human nature and   full of  descriptive passages on men, manners ,nature,  houses  and   worldly wisdom distilled through patience, Passion  for writing and a  remarkable  self- discipline on the part of the writer.
       I find this book valuable for one and all ,especially students as it hones their critical thinking, problem solving and  linguistic skills. In the present days when communication skills   have become pivotal, the book can help in improving the vocabulary and extends the mental horizon   of the young minds. They can also improve their knowledge of the mundane and capricious  world where they have to be on their toes to remain safe and  intact .    
   While Sherlock Holmes had his companion Watson, in the present work the reader has to don the role of Watson.  The reader usually  has to be in a state of high alert and intelligence to agree or disagree with the answers given  by Vikram, the detective in solving the cases. But as a lay reader of detective fiction, I have enjoyed  this detective katha Saritsagara without bothering much about  my logical self. 
         In the stories we find how human relations gone awry lead to crimes --- the husband  Mohan who  gets his wife kidnapped to wipe out her gold and savings, the Young doctor Madhusudan  who uses his intelligence to nail down the culprits through DNA testing of the  suspects, the naïve young man Suren  into the  under world of crime , and Mrs  Devendar who is suspected by the reader till the end as murderer of her husband  who  in fact was killed by the Nigerian hit man in the story Nigerian Connection .All these stories  make us reflect on the sordid world of humans, criminals who have lost humanity in their pursuit of easy money,  luxury and thoughtless cruelty towards the innocent . 
   In this book of fourteen stories ,  almost all the stories contain an intricate situation demanding logical thinking and shrewd guess to close in on the real culprits . In some stories even detectives fail to nab the perpetrators since they follow wrong clues—Karteek in the story ‘Fair and easy Passage’, Balu in “The missing Link” , David in ‘The Cashe’  were such  ineffective detectives. It required  the listener of cases the wise Vikram , the master detective and the forced listener of cases  to expose the  erroneous  thinking of detective characters in some of the stories. But Vikram could not earn his freedom still he went on answering the riddles Posed by the Phantom through case studies. The writer also presents stark reality in his story Stork reality , the  killers of the destitute and terminally ill people by those who resort to ‘mercy killing’ and  numerous characters parade before us as manifestation of the prismatic human personality.       

   The   writer has taken extreme care in treading the  narrative ground lest the reader rebelled ‘without suspending his disbelief’  against  either Vikram’s logic or the way the story ended. It needs Keen  reading as an exercise in problem solving through weighing  evidence in disposing of a legal case. Once the reader gets himself immersed in the book , he finds himself  racing through each story   with  problem- probabilities- elimination of all except the most probable thing , clinching evidence and  the resolution of the problem.  

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