Flood of Fire - Amitav Ghosh

It is 1839 and China has embargoed the trade of opium, yet too much is at stake in the lucrative business and the British Foreign Secretary has ordered the colonial government in India to assemble an expeditionary force for an attack to reinstate the trade. 
Among those consigned is Kesri Singh, a soldier in the army of the East India Company.
He makes his way eastward on the Hind, a transport ship that will carry him from Bengal to Hong Kong. 
Along the way, many characters from the Ibis Trilogy come aboard, including Zachary Reid, a young American speculator in opium futures, and Shireen, the widow of an opium merchant whose mysterious death in China has compelled her to seek out his lost son.  
The Hind docks in Hong Kong just as war breaks out and opium "pours into the market like monsoon flood." 
From Bombay to Calcutta, from naval engagements to the decks of a hospital ship, among embezzlement, profiteering, and espionage, Amitav Ghosh charts a breathless course through the culminating moment of the British opium trade and vexed colonial history. 
With all the verve of the first two novels in the trilogy, Flood of Fire completes Ghosh’s unprecedented re-envisioning of the nineteenth-century war on drugs. 
With remarkable historic vision and a vibrant cast of characters, Ghosh brings the Opium Wars to bear on the contemporary moment with the storytelling that has charmed readers around the world.

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ]
Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 4.1 out of 5 (3,345 Ratings, 465 Reviews -As on Feb 19 2018)
My Rating:   3 out of 5
My Comments:
The concluding part of Ibis Trilogy is quite interesting but nothing exceptional. I found the first part of the trilogy - The Sea of Poppies the best among the three novels.
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Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe

Fleeing from pirates, Robinson Crusoe is swept ashore in a storm, with only a knife, a box of tobacco, a pipe and the will to survive .
Robinson Crusoe is the saga of a man alone: a man who overcomes self-pity and despair to reconstruct his life. 
In his journal he chronicles his daily battle to stay alive, as he conquers isolation, fashions shelter and clothes, first encounters another human being and fights off cannibals and mutineers. 
With Robinson Crusoe, Defoe wrote what is regarded as the first English novel, and created one of the most popular and enduring myths in literature. 
But above all, it is a brilliant narrative, depicting Crusoe's transformation from a terrified survivor to the self-sufficient master of his island.
[Book Description Source: www.amazon.in ]
Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 3.66 out of 5 (202,379 Ratings ,4,836 Reviews -As on Dec 21 2017)
My Rating:   3 out of 5
My Comments:
Written quite realistically , gives a feeling of true story which it is not. 
Interesting in some places. Long drawn out and plainly boring in other places. 
Though one should remember that this book was written almost 200 years ago in 1719 and has been quite popular since then. 
Can't judge it by present day standards.

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Sherlock Holmes FAQ by Dave Thompson

All That's Left to Know About the World's Greatest Private Detective 
The Sherlock Holmes FAQ is a one-stop guide to over a centurys worth of mystery, mayhem, and most of all, deduction. 
Digging deep inside the manifold worlds of Sherlock Holmes, the FAQ is a dramatic and detailed digest of the Baker Street sleuth in all of his many guises, as TV and radio star, movie phenomenon, and, of course, literary giant. 
Chapters investigate his predecessors and his successors, and discuss the influence that Holmes has had not only on other writers, but on real-life police procedures as well. 
The London that he perambulated in deerstalker and cloak is laid bare, plus the life and other fascinations of Holmes creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, are mapped out in all their foggy, darkened atmosphere. 
We meet giant hounds and fearful foes, common crooks and misdirected souls. 
Ghosts appear in these pages, and vampires, too and more puzzles, conundrums, and mysteries than any mortal detective could ever hope to solve. 
But Holmes, as we shall see, was no mere mortal. 
And Sherlock Holmes FAQ is the story of his immortality.

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ]


Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 3.46 out of 5 (28 Ratings , 7 Reviews  - As on Dec 6 2017)
My Rating:   3 out of 5
My Comments:
Will be a great addition in the library of a Sherlock Holmes fan. Lots of interesting trivia. Beware of the spoilers though if you have not read any of the 56 short stories and 4 novels featuring Sherlock Holmes.

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Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne (Translator:Mendor T. Brunetti)

French naturalist Professor Aronnax joins a task force to rid the seas of a monster that is terrorizing shipping lanes. 
But the Professor's mission takes an unexpected turn when he falls overboard and is rescued by the 'monster' itself-the Nautilus, a man-made submarine built by the mysterious Captain Nemo. 
At first Aronnax is thrilled to see the unimaginable wonders of the oceans-the reef of coral that formed a cemetery, the ice floes of the South Pole, the huge oyster and its priceless pearl, the lost land of Atlantis-but soon he realizes that his host's motives may be more sinister than he realized. 
This triumphant work of the imagination shows the limitless possibilities of science and the dark depths of the human mind. 

 [Book Description Source: www.amazon.in ]


Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 3.87 out of 5 ( 151864 Ratings; 4777 Reviews  - As on November 13 2017)
My Rating:   3 out of 5
My Comments:
Fairly interesting. Dragging and stretched out at some places.

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A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson

Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
The longest continuous footpath in the world, the Appalachian Trail stretches along the East Coast of the United States, from Georgia to Maine, through some of the most arresting and celebrated landscapes in America. 
At the age of forty-four, in the company of his friend Stephen Katz (last seen in the bestselling Neither Here nor There), Bill Bryson set off to hike through the vast tangled woods which have been frightening sensible people for three hundred years. 
Ahead lay almost 2,200 miles of remote mountain wilderness filled with bears, moose, bobcats, rattlesnakes, poisonous plants, disease-bearing tics, the occasional chuckling murderer and - perhaps most alarming of all - people whose favorite pastime is discussing the relative merits of the external-frame backpack. 
Facing savage weather, merciless insects, unreliable maps and a fickle companion whose profoundest wish was to go to a motel and watch The X-Files, Bryson gamely struggled through the wilderness to achieve a lifetime's ambition - not to die outdoors.

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ]


Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 4.05 out of 5 ( 269,057 Ratings; 14,591 Reviews  - As on October 20 2017)
My Rating:   4 out of 5
My Comments:
An adventure travelogue written with a great sense of humor. Vivid characterization of people and picturesque description of the places on the renowned Appalachian Trail. A must read for every travel and  adventure buff.

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Inferno by Dan Brown

With the publication of his groundbreaking novels The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol, and Angels & Demons, Dan Brown has become an international bestselling sensation, seamlessly fusing codes, symbols, art, and history into riveting thrillers that have captivated hundreds of millions of readers around the world. 
Now, Dan Brown takes readers deep into the heart of Italy . . . guiding them through a landscape that inspired one of history’s most ominous literary classics.
Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon awakens in a hospital in the middle of the night. 
Disoriented and suffering from a head wound, he recalls nothing of the last thirty-six hours, including how he got there . . . or the origin of the macabre object that his doctors discover hidden in his belongings.

Langdon’s world soon erupts into chaos, and he finds himself on the run in Florence with a stoic young woman, Sienna Brooks, whose clever maneuvering saves his life. 
Langdon quickly realizes that he is in possession of a series of disturbing codes created by a brilliant scientist—a genius whose obsession with the end of the world is matched only by his passion for one of the most influential masterpieces ever written—Dante Alighieri’s dark epic poem The Inferno .

Racing through such timeless locations as the Palazzo Vecchio, the Boboli Gardens, and the Duomo, Langdon and Brooks discover a network of hidden passageways and ancient secrets, as well as a terrifying new scientific paradigm that will be used either to vastly improve the quality of life on earth . . . or to devastate it.

In his most riveting and thought-provoking novel to date, Dan Brown has raised the bar yet again.
Inferno is a sumptuously entertaining read—a novel that will captivate readers with the beauty of classical Italian art, history, and literature . . . while also posing provocative questions about the role of cutting-edge science in our future.

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 


Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 3.8 out of 5 (337,395 Ratings; 33,395 Reviews - As on June 16 2017)
My Rating:  4 out of 5
My Comments: Fast moving thriller that holds your interest throughout.



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Barnabas - Bombay's First Private Detective by Sangeeta Nambiar

British India. 
The summer of 1942.
Bombay. 
From the leafy lanes of Wodehouse Road, a British woman goes missing from her home. 
Her husband Thomas Stanton, wants to keep the police out of the loop, and thus calls in Bombay's first Private Detective, Barnabas Mehta.

Barnabas, the son of a cook, has been brought up under the tutelage of his father's employer, Francis Curtis, and thus knows the ways of the British. But that isn't enough to solve the mystery for him. 
His search for Rose leads him to the by-lanes of Girgaum where he finds a murder to solve and webs of deceit to traverse. 
Who would murder Rose so brutally? 
Family secrets and the machinations of an evil mind they're all there for Barnabas Mehta to unveil! 
A gripping murder mystery, set against the events of the Indian freedom struggle.

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 


Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 3.25 out of 5 (20 Ratings; 8 Reviews - As on April 14 2017)
My Rating:  3 out of 5
My Comments:   Well written enough to keep you engaged. The identity of the murderer is rather easy to guess for a seasoned detective fiction reader though.


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The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

The Thriller That Shook A Generation 
Five prominent biophysicists give the United States government an urgent warning: sterilisation procedures for returning space probes may be inadequate to guarantee uncontaminated re-entry to the atmosphere. 
Two years later, Project Scoop sends seventeen satellites into the fringes of space in order to 'collect organisms and dust for study'. 
Then a probe falls to the earth, landing in a desolate area of northeastern Arizona. 
A little while later, in the nearby town of Piedmont, bodies are discovered heaped and flung across the ground, faces locked in frozen surprise. 
But the terror has only just begun, because when they try to find the cause of death, the scientists don't realise just what kind of unearthly danger they are dealing with...Brilliantly filmed by Robert Wise in 1971, The Andromeda Strain was the first book to introduce Michael Crichton's audacious combination of believable plots and white-knuckled excitement to a wide audience.

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 


Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 3.87 out of 5 (173,920 Ratings; 2448 Reviews - As on April 13 2017)
My Rating:  3.5 out of 5
My Comments:  Keeps you fully engaged and almost convinces you that it is a true story. The narration of the climax could have been better.


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The Silkworm - Robert Galbraith

Private investigator Cormoran Strike returns in a new mystery from Robert Galbraith, author of the #1 international bestseller The Cuckoo's Calling.

When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. 

At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days--as he has done before--and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home.

But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realizes. 

The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows.

 If the novel were to be published, it would ruin lives--meaning that there are a lot of people who might want him silenced.

When Quine is found brutally murdered under bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any Strike has encountered before...

A compulsively readable crime novel with twists at every turn, THE SILKWORM is the second in the highly acclaimed series featuring Cormoran Strike and his determined young assistant, Robin Ellacott.

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 



Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 4.02 out of 5 (122,451 Ratings; 12,225 Reviews - As on October 30 2016)
My Rating:  3 out of 5
My Comments:  Not as good as the first book in Coromoran Strike series "The Cuckoo's Calling".


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The Chase - Clive Cussler

In The Chase Clive Cussler introduces a historical hero- Isaac Bell.
1950: the rusting hulk of a steam locomotive is raised from the depths of a Montana lake.
Inside are three bodies, bloody clue to a fortune lost for over forty years . . .
1906: For two years banks across the western United States have been living in terror of the 'Butcher Bandit'. 
This cold-blooded bank robber empties safes and murders all witnesses, vanishing without trace. 
In desperation, the US Government calls in Isaac Bell, the best detective in the country. 
From Arizona to Colorado to the streets of San Francisco during the great quake, Bell uses all his guile and ingenuity to catch up with the murderous Bandit.
But when Bell has him almost cornered - the Bandit turns really nasty. 
And suddenly the stakes have changed. 
Bell isn't just battling to get his man. 
He's fighting for his very survival . . .
Bestseller Clive Cussler - author of the Dirk Pitt novels Arctic Drift and Crescent Dawn - sends hero Isaac Bell to solve a mysterious series of bank-robberies and murders in the first novel of historical thriller series The Isaac Bell Adventures.  
The Chase is followed by The Wrecker and The Spy.
[Book Description Source: www.amazon.in ] 

Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 3.9 out of 5 (10,744 Ratings; 796 Reviews)
My Rating:  4 out of 5
My Comments: A fast paced thriller ideal for light reading. Captures the wild west scenario of early 1900s very well. 

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