There was a phase when I devoured James Patterson’s crime mysteries . I started getting nightmares and literally shaking with fear. I weaned myself off his books and avoided them for nearly 8 years. My reading list has been pretty much tame and murder mystery free. I occasionally pick up a bestseller but I pretty much steer clear of this genre. Given an opportunity to review Private India by the murder mystery kings James Patterson and Ashwin Sanghi, I literally jumped in fright (pun intended).

This 400 odd page book reminded me why I love a good, well-crafted murder mystery and why they bring on the nightmares. This book was everything my nightmares are made of. Serial murderer targeting women, a bunch of suspects each eerier than the next and murder scenes described in detail. When the nightmares hit you, you know the author has done a good job.

Attention to detail and crisp, fast-paced writing makes this book a page turner. As I read as the sun set and shadows deepened. I continued as the night watchman blew his whistle and made my heart thump. I put the book down with a smug smile of figuring out the killer a few pages before the authors revealed it as the sun rose in the horizon. It is the kind of book that makes a mystery-lover stay up all night ignoring the world.

Santosh Wagh, the lead investigator at Private India, a branch of the best PI agency int he world. The crux of the story involves trying to find a killer/(s) who was strangling women with an yellow garotte and leaving behind a carefully constructed death scene. The Private India team lead by Wagh races through Mumbai at the peak of its festive season to find the killer/s and save themselves. Santosh Wagh is an immensely likeable character created by the authors. He has his sins but he is extremely likeable. His supporting team at Private India is a cast as diverse as India. It was heartening to see a female character with some importance play a role in this book.

The book has quite a few sub-plots and that is where I found the pace lagging. There was really no need for many of those stories from the past and the other happenings around Mumbai. The don, the terrorist angle, the beggar circle, the bomb scare seemed to be unnecessary add-ons. This seemed to add a Bollywoodish tone to the book. It dragged the book down and weighed a ton. It makes you wonder why everything that is supposed to go wrong has to go wrong.

Tying mythology to the story line is Sanghi’s trademark and I am really not sure if it was a convincing move. As individual pieces the story seems fine but somewhere in the 400 page book the convincing tone of reasoning is lost.

If you are looking for a murder mystery set in Mumbai laced with all the elements of a Bollywood masala I would recommend this book. Personally the book doesn’t rank very high on my list but then I was never a big fan of Patterson or Sanghi to start with.

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I received a free copy of the book for review. All opinions are my own.