Book Review #3

The Scarlet Pimpernel: Baroness Emmuska Orczy

This is an adventure novel set in the reign of terror that followed the French Revolution. The novel is based in the year 1792: the year of grace when French aristocrats are being slaughtered at the gullotine in the name of liberté égalité fraternité.

A league of brave englishmen led by an elusive and heroic leader - The Scarlet Pimpernel, travel in disguise to France, plot a series of daring rescues to save their condemned fellow Frenchmen from daily executions. The identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel is a closely guarded secret and is unknown even to those people whom he rescues. The league, and especially their leader gain legendary status in the elite English society and equal amount of notoriety amongst the French revolutionists.

The book is based around one such rescue plot and is cleverly woven as a cat and mouse chase between the plotters and the French authorities. There is a nice love story which has been interwoven into the fabric of the story without making it seem too obtrusive or distracting. The love story adds to the plot without making it maudlin. The novel is very typically British in terms of the characters and the environs: beautiful women, gallant men, curtsies, bows, formal parties, fashion, high society et. al.

An enjoyable suspense novel although quite predictable at times. Recommended reading.

Black Friday - Hussain Zaidi

A meticulously researched book based on the Bombay serial blasts of 1992. I had not watched the movie, so was not well versed with the plot. The first few pages that described the actual blasts really scared me. Real good work done by the author who collated all the information from thousands of pages of CBI dossiers, courtroom accounts, interviews with real people etc. Since the blasts were a contemporary event during our lifetime, I found this to be an important book with respect to the history of the city. A chilling account of how a set of gangsters (and not terrorists) could mastermind and execute the sinister plot that killed and maimed scores of innocent people.

This is probably the most controversial case in the history of Indian law enforcement, and hence I don't think we can take every plot in the book at face value; but the book does give a pretty decent picture of the overall framework of the planning for the blast, the execution, the investigation, the court verdicts, and some related events like the Sanjay Dutt case, a couple of gang-wars etc. worth a one time read.