Fraudster

Thank God! Man wrote books and discovered a beautiful way of appeasing humankind.

Reading is bliss. Ya-ya I know I always say that and I can never get over this feeling. After every book, my faith in the world of words and imagination strengthens. Recently I wrapped up two very interesting books- ‘Mango Cheeks Metal Teeth’ by Aruna Nambiar and ‘Fraudster’ by R.V. Raman. Both the books were strikingly different in make and style and I thoroughly enjoyed reading the Rom-Com alternatively with the Corporate Thriller.

What keeps me on my toes?

Corporate thrillers have to be churned out skillfully to be able to capture the interest of readers till the end.  The storyline has to be strong, the plot has to be the king and the characters have to be well sketched. And to top it all, gritty suspense and racy action make it a winner any day. So when a new book of a similar genre hits the bookshelves, my expectations are no less than above. 

I chose FRAUDSTER because I loved its blurb and thrillers are my favorite. I must say this one kept me on my toes. Mr. R.V. Raman has delivered quite a promising debut novel.

Title and Cover Page

FRAUDSTER, as the name stands is about one big financial fraud that entails account books of not one but many companies and banks. To cover up things, cold blooded murders, assaults, database hackings and email deletions follow.  The blurb starts it off well with terms like corruption, greed, crime, murder, treachery etc. The title of the book stands with the storyline however I wasn’t impressed with the cover page. It looked quite similar to others that I have read already.

Story:

A young banker is suspended of work and later pushed out of the local train. She has been made the scape goat of a big financial fraud. A top notch bank official (Mr. Visht) who is close to unraveling the truth falls to death from his flat. There is another friend of him from the audits (Mr. Subbu) into whom he confides the suspected foul play but soon he is dead too. The ailing daughter of Mr. Visht and a close one of Mr. Subbu handle it strong-headedly. I loved the character of Varsha who comes to be confident, smart and intelligent girl. Soon we find her in the middle of all things and no less she braves it all. Inspector Ranade is another important character in the storyline. He isn’t sluggish and acts promptly at every drop of stone except once when he misses out something crucial.

I could never imagine financial frauds could be so nasty and cruel. What a mean world it is and corruption thrives menacingly! And it came as a surprise to me that banks could be fooled too with properties of lower worth being used to extract higher loans. Inspired with real incidents, this fiction story is fleshed out neat and crisp. There are no clues to spill the beans and the mystery thickens with every page. At one point of time I did not want to keep down the book until I had read it all.

Thumps Up:  Well written. New in the league. We have read banking thrillers but none about the actual frauds and scams that banks and audits firms come across. The author manages to hide all the clues to the perpetrator quite skillfully. Its a quick ride through into the skin of the corporate frauds. Some technical aspects of database management, mail servers, blackberry have been used quite interestingly in the plot.

Thumps Down:  When the plot thickens, the story becomes a little complicated and connecting all the dots becomes difficult. While there were clues pointing to another person as culprit, there were none to the real mischief player.  I missed playing my role of Sherlock Holmes.

Overall, the book is worth the time and money. It raises bar of Indian writing.

Thank you @Hachette and @Writersmelon for my copy of the book.

Happy Reading.