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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