The Colours of Passion by Sourabh Mukherjee 

A thriller author in making

Author Sourabh Mukherjee is becoming a better storyteller with each book. I have read other novels written by him like Romance Short, The Shadow of Death and now his latest The Colours of Passion, second in the Detective Agni Mitra series. After reading his new book I can safely say he is growing as a writer.

My City

Reading the familiar names in the story like South City Mall, City Centre, Victoria Memorial, Salt Lake, Durga Puja etc made me nostalgic about my childhood days which were spend in Calcutta, now Kolkata.

Story Line

The story is about the brutal gang rape and murder of a famous Tollywood heroine Hiya. It seems like a straight forward case of a henious crime but one single piece of information changed the entire scenario. What was appearing to be random case of crime turned out to be pre planned murder. This served as a hook which will make you turn page after page in curiosity.

Writing Style

I am quite acquaint with the author’s mystery thriller writing style. He focuses least on the character who is the real offender. As a consequence, I have a hunch about the character behind the murder and I was not surprised when my suspect was correct. But the motive and real reason behind the murder leaves me speechless.

Well laid plot

The author has clearly improved on crafting murder thriller. Real reason behind murder was tightly wrapped under the carpet. But Mukherjee will keep you glued and engrossed with other suspect characters and their probable motive behind the murder. One lead was going to another lead but the mystery was far from solved. In fact mystery seems to intensified with each passing page.

The story is fast paced and author’s simple language makes the book breeze to read. You could finish it off in one sitting within hours. Best thing about his writing is that Mukherjee doesn’t stretches the story and suspense to increase the number of pages. You will not be bored by unnecessary details.

Things which bothered me

What I don’t like about Saurabh’s writing is the way he portrays his female characters. Women in his books are always sex hungry, derogatory and low on moral values. Something which always makes me angry.

Another thing which I find rather odd is the public reaction to the rape and murder of a famous Tollywood actor. Public reaction didn’t find any place in the story. Whereas we all can imagine such a crime can create an uproar across the country. But author went on to describe Durga Puja in Bengal. Things are completely normal.  Family members are giving indifferent reactions as of it hardly matters.  Even for the protagonist Agni Mitra it was like any other criminal case there was no strong reaction.

However the story makes a strong point regarding the issue of homosexuality, society reluctance to accept such relationship and how people with different sexual orientation suffers.

The Verdict

The story line is definitely gripping right from the beginning. It is a good one time read.