Author: Soumitra Singh
Publisher: Times Group Books
Pages: 327
Price: Rs350
Debutante novelist Soumitra Singh's book, The Child of Misfortune, has all the elements of an action-packed Bollywood pot-boiler. The book is basically about a childhood friendship gone wrong but the backdrop is as serious a subject as terrorism financing. The plot is a taut geopolitical thriller that tactfully handles a complex subject with maturity and insight. Singh weaves seemingly disconnected worlds with a plot that pan across the globe - from Kashmir, and Siachen to London and Seoul.
The lead protagonist, Amar Pratap Rathore has a long and chequered history with the shadowy and enigmatic Jonah Michel. A game of chess, as the book cover depicts, has been used both in a literal way and as a metaphor. Case in point: In a thrilling sequence between Amar, Jonah and his father, 'You never ask someone to play chess Amar,' his father called out from his side of the drawing room. 'You challenge them to it.'
Pitched between the two lead characters is Maansi Agrawal, another ex-classmate, and Amar's free-spirited platonic friend, who gets entangled in the chase, mostly as a bait. Other characters or shall we say 'players' are a 'Human Yeti'; a London-based businesswoman, Loretta Quin; a firebrand journalist 'Agent Orange', and Kang, a teenaged hacker, among others. The fact that Amar himself is flawed and going through some sort of an existential crisis, makes him vulnerable that's easy to empathise with.
29-year-old Soumitra Singh dived head-first into writing after spending more than a decade in the finance sector, where he pursued research in terrorism financing at a German think-tank but he longed for writing something other than dry, financial research papers. And so came along the idea of The Child of Misfortune that channels Singh's expertise in the field and marries it with his flair for writing.
The narrative is linear with short glimpses of flashback, which makes the book a racy read.
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