Book: Baramulla Bomber
Author: Clark Prasad
Book Blurb:
An Ancient Weapon from the Vedas & Bible
Once Hunted by the Nazis
Powered by the Sound of the Universe
Reborn with the Help of Quantum Physics
Going to be Unleashed onto the World
And Kashmir Holds its Secret
Multiple intelligence agencies are tracking Mansur Haider, a god-fearing aspiring cricketer from Kashmir. His girlfriend, Aahana Yajurvedi, is trying to locate her missing mountaineering team, which vanished after a mysterious earthquake struck Shaksgam Valley. Investigating Mansur and the Shaksgam Valley incident is Swedish intelligence officer, Adolf Silfverskiold, whose only relationship to God consists of escorting his girlfriend to Church.
A dual China-Pakistan battlefront scenario facing the Indian Home Minister, Agastya Rathore, whose ancestors carry a prehistoric secret linked to the stars. He is faced with the challenge of finding a lasting solution to the Kashmir crisis.
Which biblical weapon was tested in Shaksgam valley? Why is Mansur Haider important? Is there a solution to the Kashmir crisis? Can destiny be controlled? Does a cosmic religion exist?
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I had been applying to read and review this book through various forums and when finally The Tales Pensieve decided to accommodate my request through their Book Reviews program, I was glad. And believe me when I say this, it turned out to be probably one of the best decisions in recent times. Clark Prasad took me on a ride like never before and it was hard to believe that such a masterful thriller of a book can be written by a debutant author.
The book deals with multiple threads which are woven into one beautiful tapestry by wonderfully interconnected threads. At the heart of it, this is a story of an ancient divine weapon which has the potential to change the world as we know it. The lives of Mansur Haider, an up and coming cricketer from Kashmir, his girlfriend Aahana Yajurvedi, Swedish intelligence officer Adolg Silfverskiold are inexplicably changed when they get involved with each other and with the weapon due to entirely different circumstances. And when the Indian Home Minister Agastya Rathore also gets involved with the happenings, more spice is added to the already spicy dish that the plot really is.
Hopping from Pakistan occupied Kashmir to Sweden, the book deals with hardcore cloak and dagger stuff being dealt in by intelligence agencies around the world with players such as politicians and intelligence chiefs getting involved. This is the stuff that we usually read about in Frederick Forsyth thrillers and coming from an Indian debutant, it truly does herald a new wave in Indian literature.
Given that this is the first part of a trilogy which unusually need not necessarily be read in sequential order according to the author, I am surely going to pick up the remaining two books. Am not giving away anything more of the plot here due to a specific request by the author not to do so and allow all readers of the book to enjoy it to its fullest by themselves.
Suffice to say that the author dabbles with fields such as politics, espionage, archeo-astronomy and human relationships with such ease that you would be forgiven to think that he is a veteran of many books of one or more of these genres. The amount of research that he has done on the various fields that this book deals with is all listed out in the appendix and is truly commendable. For anybody who thought writing a spy-thriller book was cake walk, think again, as Clark Prasad truly has set the benchmark, at least for Indian authors in this genre.
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The book was received as part of Reviewers Programme on The Tales Pensieve.
