Who killed Professor Raghava Mudgood? This crime thriller takes the reader into the life of the rich and the famous, their hidden agendas, power struggles and subsequent betrayals

The 21^st century seems to have become the ‘violent century’ where crime and cities are synonymous. Man’s greed has overtaken his common sense, his conscience and his purpose. Going by this, the protagonist Assistant Commissioner of Police Borei Gowda is a likeable man. His conscience is alive and kicking. His surliness, growls and barks are worse than his bites.

The plot is commonplace—a prominent citizen of Bangalore has been murdered. Professor Raghava Mudgood spent eight decades on the planet criticising religion and the right-wing. Besides age, his wife’s death marred his thinking more. He lashed out more, viewed everyone as his enemy, even his daughter Janaki, who had married a Muslim real estate developer. He refused to live with his daughter and needed constant surveillance. His five-acre property was in prime location making it worth crores. Hence, the police begin the search for the murderer with two prime motives—political and land. It could have been any gangster movie or series, which thrive on OTT these days.

For me what stood out was the fact that the author has put police work as centre stage. Most crime novels make a private detective as the driving force. This is the third book on Inspector Gowda. (He reminds me of Chief Inspector Erwin Köster from ‘The Old Fox’ (Der Alte in German) police detective series aired on Doordarshan in the early 1980s, the era of black and white and limited viewing).

Gowda is a normal man in his early 50s, with flaws. He lives alone, his wife and son are in Hassan; there is no conjugal bliss, just a wary compromise. His physical and emotional are satiated with a college sweetheart—who is also a high-society lady. And eventually does play a significant part in helping solve the case.

While sharp with a ‘sakkath sense’, Gowda does become slack sometimes, as in not screening his tenants before they move in. He does not trust anyone, but this complacency is high risk, as the readers learn later in the book.

The book is a long, detailed saga about the underbelly that thrives in an urban world. It touches upon corruption, power, bribery, trampling of peace, revenge, race for financial security and in between there is the family. The reader will find little quotable nuggets all through the book, such as ‘The mob is a mindless monster’.

The characters, and there are many (major and minor) are fully developed. Nair has focussed a lot on their physical and emotional make-up bringing them to life for the reader. The locations and the setting are very descriptive. The government machinery and its many nuances are clearly defined.

The narrative goes on without a break, with more daily jargon. Everything, right down to mudde/bondas/chai are mentioned, giving the readers a flavour of what people eat in Bangalore. Coffee seems to be more favoured at home and chai on the streets. YouTube, laptops and mobile phones as spy cams have become commonplace in the current tech era, and their usefulness is highlighted in the book. Environmental concerns too find their place in the narrative such as drying up of lakes and rampant development that spells death for the local ecosystem.

What stood out though, were the liberal, sensible views. Religion does not make a man’s world the only right world; its nuances of divide and rule are sprinkled in bits and pieces. The search for peace and desire to turn men’s hearts into pious spaces is a commendable aspect of this crime fiction book.

Thanks to Gowda’s persistence in looking for the needle in the haystack, the killer is caught. The motive is the trademark of the capitalist century: money. You have to read the book to know who is the killer is.

Book Details
Publisher: HarperCollins India  
Language: English
Paperback: ‎444 pages (Kindle edition available)
Price: Rs 499

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