Title : Checkmate
Author : Hrishikesh Joshi
Blurb : An upright judge is used as a pawn by the terrorists to hijack a plane. The militants strike with vengeance to free their most dangerous fidayeen from the Indian prisons, as they hold a hundred passengers in the plane to ransom. Calling the shots for jihadis from Pakistan is once upon a time the right hand man of Osama Bin Laden and now the most dangerous terrorist in the world, Muhammad Zia ul Afridi. With the Prime Minister in a soup, there is only one man to stop the diabolical scheme of the dreaded jihadis—Vikram Roy, chief Secretary of RAW, a dashing young man of action. As the Prime Minister is about to surrender the prisoners, Vikram Roy discovers the most shocking truth about activities inside the RAW. The weary nation holds its breath as the fate of a hundred hostages and the prisoners hangs in a limbo. However, the events that are about to follow are so unforeseen that they shock everyone to the core.
My view :The way events have been bonded together makes a great connectivity with the reader. To add one more star to it,events possess the strength to deliver something fruitful to reader.Even the link between sentences is maintained quite shrewdly,while reading it one doesn’t feel like linking is missing. The crunchiness of the story is maintained throughout,not a moment it felt like the story has lost some good content or lost the track.
I wish the cover could have given a classy look to this book,although ‘One shouldn’t judge the book by it’s cover’,but its the cover that catches the reader’s attention at first.So,it doesn’t harm to have a good story along with a good cover.
The art of presenting events before readers is praise worthy,author has portrayed the scenes in such a manner that readers could relate to the scenes,visualize them easily,that too without any presence of uninvited content. Conversations are valid and spiced up with flavours required to make a good impact on reader’s mind and acting as a good support to the story.
From the plane being hijacked to the use of Chief Justice in their mission,a proper ambiance is created by the author.His words shot at the proper place, and gives a real touch to his thoughts.A powder of anxiety mixed in his words works at its best to make readers hooked to it until they found out the answers raising in their mind.Incidents incorporated in the book are interesting in nature,although many of them you might have seen the watched or read about it,but to me,they are interesting enough to keep my interest alive and strong enough to garb my attention.
It was the first time I was reading a story based on ‘plane-hijack’ theme,and I found the narration extremely lenient to let me gross into it. Being a debutant,the kind of maturity author has shown in all the elements he has poured in his book is really appreciable.From the storyline to the narration,from articulation to amalgamation of fruitful events,from connectivity to readers to connection between events,author marks a level from his debut.
Working on such kind of story couldn’t be purely imaginative,scenes need to be scratched from experience and research,and that makes a whole lot of work to do, until and unless one belongs to the same field.Author’s work shows the amount of hard work he has stirred in this book. The touch of Islamic, Jihadis is astutely painted.Characters speak of their traits in a very-well manner. The pace of the story is conventional,moving on a single track,it chooses a safe and convenient road to cover the journey.
A good read, and recommended to those who like the story based on the theme!
Rating : 4.1/5
Reviewer : Shweta Kesari