Book Review: Mr Majestic - The Tout of Bengaluru
‘I’m Harry – as in Potter, but better.’
Mr Majestic – given name Hari, aka Harry, Cyber Scammer Director Bongjee, No. 1 Tout of Bengaluru – is having the worst day of his life. Not just because he is trying to escape a muscled thug who is making inquiries about a scam luring gorgeous young hopefuls into the world of Indian cinema (and Hari wishes so much he wasn't guilty as charged); not just because he has witnessed his childhood idol, superstar Jagatprasiddha, get seriously wounded in a smash-up involving a cow and a pink Porsche; nor just because a decrepit foreign tourist is inadvertently dead at his hands. It is the worst day of Hari's life because the missing girl he has been hired to dig out from the bowels of Bengaluru – for a reasonable sum – is the wrong woman to fall in love with.
When I started reading the book, I was of the impression that it should have been more justified to call it a humor novel, but that was until the crime and the detective popped up. Although Mr Majestic – the Tout of Bengaluru is termed as a detective novel by Zac O'Yeah, the book is essentially a hilarious account of Hari, a tout’s adventure in the lanes of the Bengaluru’s underworld, of which Hari himself was also a part of. For this humorous thriller, Zac O'Yeah has chosen a setting that is a vast sleaze-pit of manic drivers, sewage lakes, cheap rum, dicey non-veg, video pirates, sundry lowlifes, and men who kill for a living.
The luggage repairman had spare handles for any make of suitcase; computer engineers removed viruses from your computer as easily as they re-infected them again; and the pavement booksellers stocked handbooks for computer languages that were obsolete in every other part of the world.The characters in this book are interesting and very much alive inside a framework that follows the typical flow of an action thriller with the exception of the humorous style of narration that ties everything smoothly, providing enough occasions for the reader to laugh aloud. Remember: not all detective novels can make you laugh and it is not always that a tout is forced to doubt his odds of survival and ask himself the inevitable: will he be reborn as a cockroach?
|  |
It was a nice read. I had received the review copy from Hachette India. Thank you Hachette India for giving me this opportunity. You can buy this book at flipkart in case you live in India. You can also find the lowest price of this book in India at shoppingwish.in
You may also like similar reviews available in the
archive
0 Thoughts:
Share a thought