Crime on your shelves

Life or Death 
Author: Michael Robotham
The book starts with a prison-break. Audie Palmer, a convict doing time at a state penitentiary, makes a dash for the wires exactly one day before he is to walk free. A window and a few bruises later, he reaches the open. Freedom, Audie knows, is more dangerous but he has a promise to keep — one he had made 10 years ago to Belita, the only woman he loved. He has the woods on one side and a three mile unassailable stretch of sea on the other. He chooses the latter and plunges in the water but gives up before making it to the shore, spent. But not quite. This is an excellent premise, one that thrills and frustrates. The roller-coaster begins with Desiree, an FBI special agent who joins the manhunt, and Moss, Audie's neighbour in the jail being stage-managed by the bad guys to search for Audie.
Michael's boldness with language is inventive and refreshing at the same time: "She sets aside a half-molested sandwich and looks up…" or
"The western horizon is streaked with red and orange, like somebody has sliced open a sack of burning coal."
The narrative has an addictive pace, gluing events as they progressively pile on Audie like weights on the shoulders of a cross-country runner who has to run for his life. Short chapters keep the adrenalin pumping. The observations about people and their habits are astute, making the images sharper.
A thriller has to have coincidences cleverly tucked in for the characters to go in and out of each other's lives, killing, loving, saving, and escaping one another. But in Life or Death, I found one too many. Like at one point when Audie has just made love to a woman in a motel room and wakes up and leaves saying that something doesn't feel right – just seconds before the police arrive at the door.

The Kill Switch
Author: James Rollins
The Kill Switch features Tucker Wayne, an ex-US Army ranger, and his dog Kane. The novel is set in Russia, South Africa and the United States. Tucker is tasked to rescue Bukolov, a wealthy tycoon with interests in the pharmaceutical industry who fears for his life, and that of his daughter Anya. The Russian intelligence GRU, its elite arm, the Spetsnaz, and the military are not the only dangers. Tucker will also have to evade hired mercenaries in the frigid winter of Siberia and the Groot Mountains on the South Africa-Namibia border who are after Bukolov's life.
I liked the prologue which is set in 1900, South Africa, during the Second Boer War when an unrecognised virus kills the Dutch troops hiding in secret mountain tunnels to survive a much larger attack by the British. Boer botanist Paulos De Klerk's papers are what Bukolov is looking for. Listed in those papers are the details of LUCA, a deadly virus that can potentially wipe out the entire plant life on earth, and therefore can be used as a weapon of mass destruction.
The novel is about the hopelessness of the protagonist's vulnerability. As also of the steadfastness of the antagonist, who keeps adding obstacles as the two head for the big fight through a series of cliffhangers and near-misses. Though readable, I found certain portions of this action-adventure too straight to digest. Like when Tucker saves Anya from her institute and takes her out walking through the main gate with no vehicle outside, using broken Russian to talk to the guard.
I will recommend the book for its interesting settings: the Trans-Siberia rail, the harsh Russian countryside, the submarine eco-tours under the Volga river, the Groot Mountains in the Western Cape Province of South Africa etc. The premise is believable too, as is the agent-dog team at work.

Bhendi Bazaar
Author: Vish Dhamija
Bhendi Bazaar is an entertaining crime novel, a welcome addition to the list of thrillers by Indians.
The year is 1982. The Asian Games have just ended in New Delhi. Three under-20 women members of the Soviet Union team disappear from the New Delhi airport on their way home. No one knows about their secret plan to change identities and escape to England via Mumbai to permanently rid themselves of the poverty back home.
The narrative thereafter moves at breakneck speed to present day Mumbai—short sentences, jaunty words, sharp dialogues—where one Mr. Lele, a hawala trader, is found murdered in the middle class neighbourhood of Versova. The killer has mutilated the private parts of the 40-year-old divorcee. As more people die, Rita Ferreira, the DCP from the Mumbai Crime Branch, realises there is a serial killer on the loose. She sets up a special operations room in the police headquarters at Crawford Market and tries to counter the madness of the killer with her commitment and hard work. As the killer strikes again and again, outplaying the police's vigil, Rita has to race against time to capture the beast. A criminal profiler, a classmate from college who helps the Scotland Yard in England, comes as welcome support for Rita, both on and off the turf. Vish's vocabulary is notable, though I am not sure if the average Indian reader would get the word 'stiff' for a dead body and 'moniker' for a name.
Ingeniously plotted and rich in characterisation, Bhendi Baazar is a highly-readable crime thriller that is part psychological and part detective. Twists and turns in the narrative, fused skillfully, intensify the suspense, bringing up an end that is both bewildering and satisfying at the same time.

Kulpreet Yadav's Catching the Departed was shortlisted in Hachette-DNA's Hunt for Next Bestseller