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Review : Kansa by Prassant Kevin 0

The novel Kansa begins with a couple returning from a wedding in a car, colliding with a woman at night, They think that they have met with an accident, however the woman is not injured, she is in a daze, after an extremely traumatic experience. Later it is found that the woman Mehar had been kidnapped, and her new born baby had been murdered. The case is assigned to ACP Saargi Desai, from delhi who has developed a reputation for being a fearless officer. The killing of the baby revives the memory of similar murders, where pregnant women were kidnapped, and later they were found dead, along with their babies. The killer who was never identified, or traced was nicknamed as Kansa in the media, after the mythological figure

To solve the case ACP Saargi Desai takes the help of a criminology professor Virat, nicknamed professor black, who is considered to be greatest expert in catching criminals . Mehar is asked to draw the place where she was kept after being kidnappped, and the ACP and professor find that property belongs to one Dayal Singh who was living in Pune. When they go to Pune, they find that Dayal Singh died some time ago, allegedly killing himself in prison and he was imprisoned when found guilty of killing his wife, His adopted daughter is also found dead, and his son has also disappeared. There is little information available except some old photos of a party which show the wife of Dayal Singh, Mira flirting with another man

The ACP and Professor black who had a troubled past, are then able to use the resources available to trace the son of Dayal singh and also find out more about the boyfriend of Mira, Roy the owner of a pharma company. A lot more blood is shed as ACP and her associates try to find out who the real Kansa is, the motive for killing new born babies in the fast paced, extremely well written mystery novel which could be easily made into a movie or television serial

The indian mainstream media often portrays the indian intelligence and security agencies as honest saints who will never break the law. However some indian citizens realize the hard way, that indian intelligence and security agencies are entering their house repeatedly with duplicate keys and stealing whatever they wish to without the knowledge of the person residing in the house, especially if bribed by large corporates like google, tata. This harassment method is cause home intrusion, was originally perfected by KGB, the soviet secret service has been discussed in other novels also, however Kansa is the first indian novel which shows security agency employees using this method

For example the intelligence and security agencies in panaji, goa have been repeatedly stealing the documents of a harmless google competitor, engineer with a better 1989 jee rank than google ceo sundar pichai to cause mental stress and force her to agree to identity theft, give up her impressive resume including btech 1993 ee degree, investment to the 10 lazy greedy mediocre google, tata sponsored goan sex workers, cheater housewife, blackmailer and other fraud R&AW/CBI/indian intelligence employees who never answered JEE, yet get a monthly indian government salary for faking a btech 1993 ee degree. For example in August 2017, the domain investor found that some important documents which she had kept in a bag have disappeared, stolen by the local intelligence and security agencies who have duplicate keys

The book is also interesting as it is a reflection of the lifestyle of young people today. As Karan Johar mentions in his book “An unsuitable boy” many of those who graduated in the early nineties were quite innocent and did not have any affairs. In contrast, ACP Saargi Desai had hundreds of one night stands at a fairly young age. Also it appears that government employees like ACP Desai, shop online extensively as they can afford to unlike broke domain investors subjected to identity theft. The book also shows how wealthy people manipulate the system in India without being caught. The writer has an excellent writing style, it is difficult for the reader to put down the book. There are almost no spelling and grammar mistakes, unlike most of the indian books available at goodreads giveaways

An extremely well written fast paced mystery thriller, ideal for relaxing and forgetting everything else

Kansa , Introducing Professor Black (Book one of the killer trilogy)
Author : Prassant Kevin
Publisher : Inked Company, New Delhi, 2016
Pages: 398