Book Review of Hot Stage by Anita Nair

   

Name of Book: Hot Stage

Author: Anita Nair

ISBN: 978-1-913394-96-7

Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press 

Part of a Series: Inspector Gowda series 

Type of book: India, December of 2012, right politics, Bangalore, religion, drinking bars,  territory, juggling balls, mystery, death, illegal fights, undercover work 

Year it was published: 2024

Summary:

The third in the Inspector Gowda series, set in Bangalore, India. Borei Gowda is a splendidly grumpy, hard-drinking, deeply flawed policeman whose chaotic home life includes an absent wife, an estranged son and an enigmatic mistress. When elderly Professor Mudgood is found dead in his Bangalore house one winter morning, it is considered a natural death; after all, he was 82 years old, but Gowda isn’t so sure. All the evidence points to a political murder since the professor was a fervent critic of right-wing forces in India. But the more Gowda delves into the details, the more convinced he becomes that the professor’s killing has been stage-managed. There is something more sinister to it – and Gowda has no other option but to take a calculated risk to infiltrate this sinister world.

The fast-paced plot has many surprising twists, but police work is not just about going out and catching crooks. All kinds of office politics, caste politics and other considerations complicate Gowda’s life. Anita Nair lives in Bangalore, and her disclosure of Gowda’s thoughts is “This was a city where dog ate dog, rat devoured rat, and everyone would get ahead if they dismissed their conscience.”

Characters:

Main character is Borei Gowda, a middle-aged police officer who recently got a promotion and has to deal with change of duties, although he would much more rather have his old job back. Borei has a lot of balls to juggle, namely his home life, his work life and his personal life, and its a balance that's not at all successful. The book doesn't really provide much solutions on balancing life, but it shows an all too human man at work. There are a lot of returning characters such as Santosh, Borei's protege, Urmilla, Borei's lover, Borei's other co-workers Gajendra and Byrappa. (I definitely liked Byrappa in this book) Let's also not forget the husband and wife of Bhuvanna (Mrs Tenant as he thinks of her) and Mr. Tenant. New character that I definitely hope to see more in the future is Aqthar, Santosh's co-worker from the Dharwad area. There are plenty more, but I would rather not spoil them. 

Theme:

We are much more than the sum of our parts

Plot:

The story is in third person narrative mostly from Gowda's teams point of view and few times points of view from the villains. There is an indirect return of a certain character from a certain book, and one more character is introduced, Santosh's friend Aqthar. First of all, highly necessary to read the previous two books of the series because there are events that are mentioned that happened in them. With that out of the way, stylistically this follows a lot like the first book and the author has done a good job in doing the timeline, namely showing progression of Borei's and Urmilla's relationships which is less than ideal. There is also discussion of importance of blending in, class differences and treatment of women in India, be it by politicians or husbands or police officers and illegal fights. Although it seems that there is a lot of topics, the author handles them deftly and the book doesn't lag nor stall when covering them. 

Author Information:
(From goodreads)

Anita Nair is the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of the novels The Better Man, Ladies Coupé, Mistress, Lessons in Forgetting, Idris: Keeper of the Light and Alphabet Soup for Lovers. She has also authored a crime series featuring Inspector Gowda.

Anita Nair’s other books include a collection of poems titled Malabar Mind, a collection of essays titled Goodnight & God Bless and six books for children. Anita Nair has also written two plays and the screenplay for the movie adaptation of her novel Lessons in Forgetting which was part of the Indian Panorama at IFFI 2012 and won the National Film Award in 2013. Among other awards, she was also given the Central Sahitya Akademi award and the Crossword Prize. Her books have been translated into over thirty one languages around the world. She is also the founder of the creative writing and mentorship program Anita’s Attic.

Opinion:

This was definitely worth a read and I am hoping for a chance to read more of her Borei Gowda inspector novels in the future. It strongly kept me turning pages long into the night, being also intrigued by what is going on and how things are tied up. There are also several juicy loose ends that promise more exciting novels coming up. (Please tell me she won't leave the reader hanging on after certain revelations!) Yes it is important to read the previous two books because the third book follows that particular timeline which the reader learns is end of 2012. While the previous two books focus on Borei and his personal life (namely his relationships with Urmilla as well as his co-workers and family) this one seems to step back and focus on Borei's co-workers, their knowledge and help with the case, in particular more information about Byrappa and Gajendra. It also focuses a lot more on Gowda's coworkers rather than people outside his team. 

This was given for review

4 out of 5
(0: Stay away unless a masochist 1: Good for insomnia 2: Horrible but readable; 3: Readable and quickly forgettable, 4: Good, enjoyable 5: Buy it, keep it and never let it go.)