The Bankster- A book review

Its really strange how my mind gives instructions to me to jump at anything that says 'thriller'. Thanks to Blogadda, I got another wonderful opportunity to review a thriller, The Bankster by Ravi Subramanian.

The cover page is excellent and definitely hooks a reader's interest from the start. The grey, blue and black color combination along with the sinister looking man deliver the title extremely well.

The synopsis speaks of a series of murders that threaten to destroy the reputation of Greater Boston Global Bank(GB2) and as Karan Punjabi, press reporter and ex-banker digs deeper, he finds that the matter has roots into a global conspiracy of greater dimensions- something that could not only destroy the bank but also cast a shadow on the entire nation.

The story revolves around the corporate lives of the bankers of GB2 and describes some jaw dropping, cunning exploits of the senior level executives. The dirty games, manipulations taking place in the inner circles of the bank were a highlight for someone like me who has no prior knowledge about banking(expect for depositing pocket money savings in an account from which I cant WITHDRAW :-/) Simultaneously, the plot is woven with the one man struggle of Krishna Menon against the commissioning of a nuclear power plant that had the safety and lives of the people from his neighborhood at stake.

An attempt to give power to his struggle triggers greater evils of dirty politics, deceit and treachery and eventually the bigger picture of the entire scam comes up.

The author takes the readers to many locations- from Angola to Vienna to Mumbai and Kerala and I really like the detailed description of the site, its geography etc. The characters are well sketched; they are realistic and imaginable. Not knowing much about banking wasn't a minus as I had feared from the title and the tagline that says 'Meet the John Grisham of banking' because the author briefs in about everything related to it and gave me lesser Google searches to run.

The plot line is good; it has its moments that makes you apprehend over what will happen next but it wasn't gripping enough at times. The murders were predictable, and a few characters were suspicious right from the beginning so it didn't come as a surprise to see them hauled over coals at the end.

The best part I think was the totally unpredictable culprit and the interesting way the various incidents that had no relation in the beginning were woven up in one thread at the end. Another plus would be the decent writing style and good narration.

The story I felt, was a bit slow at the start. It took too long to move over the background detailing for all the conspiracies hatching, the intricate character backgrounds and come to the point when things start boiling.

The conversations too seemed a bit halted and it was confusing at first to understand the relations between the GB2 employees. I found the entry of Karan Punjabi, the supposed lead character a bit late and the chemistry between him and Kavya wasn't much of my interest either.

Something I loved the best and want to give the author kudos on is the page turning excerpt on The Big News Debate. I simply loved the pacey debate and the way everything shifts in the blink of an eye!!

Overall, the book is good; it hits off the unpredictability prerequisite for a thriller quite well and I would rate it a 7/10.

Thriller lovers definitely have something to treasure in their book collections like I do(a SIGNED copy too by the way :D) and if you havent read it yet, go grab it!!

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com . Participate now to get free books!