At first glance, this detective novel by Tanushree Podder seems promising: missing Bollywood film star Ramola suddenly resurfaces in a small Kumaoni hill town from where she issues invitations for her fortieth birthday celebrations to five men she had known intimately back in Mumbai: a famous filmmaker, a powerful politician, an underworld don, a former superstar and a scheming gigolo.
Ramola has a nasty surprise in store for these men, some of whom had been instrumental in her celluloid success, but had also exploited her cruelly: at the party, she announces her plans of publishing her memoir, a no-holds-barred exposé featuring them.Hackles are raised, fear is generated and murder is inevitable. With the premise established and expectations raised, the novel proceeds to destroy its own potential.
Podder’s efforts to prepare convincing backstories for her main protagonists notwithstanding, the candid reminiscences of the men from Mumbai are out of character.
And then, we never stop questioning the down-to-earth Ramola’s reasons for her memoir’s risk-fraught pre-publication announcement when the book’s release alone would have constituted sweet revenge. Her hill-town acquaintances remain two-dimensional figures, trying our patience with their long, stilted conversations that don’t necessarily take the story forward.
As we read on, crime scenes are contaminated, confidential findings shared with potential suspects, authenticity sacrificed and logic disregarded. By then, nothing — the laboured pace, the watered-down suspense, the discrepancies in the description of scenes, the editorial lapses and even the absurdity of the denouement, followed by a hurried attempt to justify it — can surprise us.
Nothing, except Podder’s revelation that actual research went into the writing of this novel.
A Closetful of Skeletons; Tanushree Podder, Harper Black, ₹250
The author, a Kolkata-based freelance editor, enjoys reading, writing and travelling.
