After reading three non-fictions in the row, I was dying to go back to fictional world once again. Business Doctors by Sameer Kamat was perfect for me. Though I’d be lying if i say that I was super excited about the book yet the title of the book intrigued me.
Management consultation is a not a very old in the service industry which helps various organization to improve growth and troubleshooting. The author, no doubt, has picked up a very fancy concept and also manage to pull it off with equal ease.
Business Doctor is about the giant business of an American Underworld Don whose business is bleeding from all the ends. He hires a business consultant in lieu to turnaround the fortune of his business. Well this was the first surprise for me. Usually, Indian authors prefers to include Indian characters and culture in their book so that reader could connect easily. But Sameer choose to be different. The book is written with LA as a backdrop.
Another factor impressed and surprised me was the presence of humor in the book. Now again writing a thriller, writers refrains from adding the element of humor in the plot and choose to keep things serious. Here also Sameer has guts to deviate from the followed norm. Throughout the book, I found myself surrounded by hard core criminals but still had loads of reason to smile while reading the book.
I specially liked the couple of conversations like between Mafia don Woody and his wife Angie while latter was suggesting to take help of an expert to sort out business issues and then Woody tried to hit similar conversation with his men and get bizarrely hilarious answers in return. That was worth a read.
The author has also quite a good grip over dialogues. There were many speeches and also snappy and witty conversation in between the narratives. There is a perfect balance of narration and dialogues in the book.
Book also has in details how the whole Business Consultant thing works. He has quite simplified the management jargons which will help readers to fully grasp about this But thankfully the author didn’t go into details about about the Woody business like extortion, kidnapping , contract-killing, gambling , weapons, drugs etc.
The author seemed to be quite inspired by reality shows. Well it is just a guess. The first half of the book was like those bollywood movies like Sholay or Karma where Thakur aka Sanjeev Kapoor or Vishwa Pratap Singh aka Dilip Kumar hires criminals to avenge the death of their loved one. Similarly in the book, the business doctor Michael Schneider assembles many goons in order to turn around the fortunes of don’s business.
Second half was something like a reality show. Each goons goes through tests and tasks to prove his mettle. Though it was fun to read it but it could have been much better. Also the so called reality show ended abruptly as there was an emergency to raise 5 million dollars which Michael and his new team of goons raises with quite ease without any hitch. How crimes like kidnapping, hacking etc could be planned in the matter of couple of days and executed flawlessly. Seem like Police and bad luck doesn’t exit in this world or is very inefficient.
The character were well chalked out but their characterization was not flawless and convincing. Woody is said to be powerful don but I never find him intimidating and was killed so easily(spoiler). Micheal was said to be reluctant to work with Woody but I never find him convincingly reluctant. He always relent without giving a fight.
Angie was in the background most of the time but there were enough hints that she is also playing games but nothing came out very well. She could have been a great suspense element in the plot which the author missed to develop. Also Martin assistant of Micheal goes completely out of picture in the second half of the book.
The Verdict
Overall the book is perfect blend of thrill with humor. The plot is refreshing and different and if you are looking to read other than romance or murder mystery then Business Doctor could be the one. The tinge of suspense What-will-happen-next will keep you glued to the book and presence of humor makes the book unputdownable.
Author Bio: Sameer Kamat is the founder of MBA Crystal Ball and Booksoarus. His first book, Beyond The MBA Hype published by HarperCollins, is currently in the third reprint. Business Doctors – Management Consulting Gone Wild is his second book.
