Daughters of Cain - Colin Dexter

Colin Dexter is a successful crime writer known for his series of novels based on the capabilities of a Detective Chief Inspector Morse. I had not read his books earlier so when a friend offered to lend a book, I was more than happy to try it out.

The Daughters of Cain is a whodunnit mystery where, an Oxford professor Felix McClure is found stabbed to death on a Sunday morning with no traces of the murder weapon nor any evidence of a murderer. Many suspects emerge over the course of the time, however, no evidence to pin it on.

The story is interesting and the writing egged me further on to find out what happens next however, somewhere half way through the novel, it was beginning to get tiresome. The length definitely needed editing. 

Another thing I noticed about the character development: it seemed like the author enjoyed fleshing out the characters and then suddenly lost interest. I would have loved to know more about Julia Stevens – one of the key characters in the story. There was also a tiny little love story that died before it had even formed well. Inspector Morse is an interesting character no doubt, but I felt he seemed to have given up on life (based on the story line, of course). Was this what the author intended? I don't know, it felt like I had reached the end of the series. I found out later it was the almost the end. (he wrote two more books after this novel in the Morse series)

I would have voted for this highly had the length been taken care of. Still, it isn’t a bad book at all. A light read that is needed especially when one is too tired to deal with serious stuff in life.

Chain of Custody by Anita Nair

Although I began this book in the last three days of 2016, I will officially count it as the first book of 2017 as I finished it on 5th of January.

Chain of Custody can be called a noble attempt to tackle a complicated and a dark subject - of child trafficking and human deprivation. Much as I like Anita Nair - she is one of my favourite Indian writers - I struggle to come to terms with the way this book falls just little short of the expectations. It is a crime thriller so you expect a water-tight plot and a gripping story line. I wont say she has failed in here, but neither did she excel. There were many passages of wonderful writing, but in a genre like this, its the weak passages that break your attention. 

For example, the insights on Inspector Borei Gowda's personal life is quite interesting and makes the story alive, but some portions feel unnecessarily forced upon. The way his son is a friends with the one of the exploited girl's brother - it all feels too convenient and in the end, didn't make much of a difference to the story. The story of Krishna, the right-hand man of 'Tekhedar' almost got to the point of being interesting and then fell along the way. 

I felt the main subject was touched upon only superficially - may be I am being too harsh here - this is not supposed to be an essay or an expose' but, I would have loved to get more information on the how child trafficking has evolved over the years in India and what progress is being made by the law towards curbing it or, how badly they have failed in doing so. Probably this whole story will continue in the next installment, I don't know for sure, but it did feel incomplete. 

Despite my misgivings, I will still wait for the next book because this book was better than the first in the series and I hope the same rule applies to the third one. And, because she is a damn good writer attempting something very different. I have faith in her.