Q & A ( Slumdog millionaire) by Vikas Swarup

I have been postponing watching the movie "Slumdog Millionaire"  for a long time now. The reason: I wanted to read the book first.I still haven't seen the movie . Neither I want to. I am highly satisfied with the book that now I don't want to see the complicated version in the celluloid.

First and foremost, the book is not about Mumbai slums. India is just a backdrop for the novel. This story could have happened any where. Seems like Hollywood has too much enforced the idea that India means slums, poverty and corruption.

The story is of Ram Mohammed Thomas , an eighteen year old waiter who wins two billion in a quiz show. Later he is taken into police custody having suspected of cheating, from where Smitha, a lawyer saves him.In the next twelve chapters Ram narrates to Smitha how he answered the twelve questions by linking each one of it to one of his life experiences. Thus the story of Ram is unfold from a juvenile home in Delhi  to a chawl in Mumbai to Taj Mahal in Agra and as he is with a catholic priest, a bollywood heroine, a diplomat and many more. The story touches all the issues that can be thought of, including homosexuality, Bollywood, corruption, espionage, domestic violence, illegal betting, contract killing etc. with many murders and suicides in between. Seems like Ram has lived through all the Dickens hardships. The story does not progress chronologically but still  Swarup is able to keep up the pace and the suspense throughout the book.

Highly unrealistic and highly entertaining. 4 out of 5.

The Halloween Party by Agatha Christie

In a Halloween party a thirteen year old girl boasts of having witnessed a murder and by the end of the party the same girl is found murdered. Hercule Poirot is called to investigate the murder by his friend Oliver . Now he has to first decide whether he is looking for a murderer or a double murderer.

This novel presents an exciting mystery but the way of story telling is really bad. I was so much bored at times by the dragging pace at which the story was progressing that I began to wonder whether Christie employed somebody else to write this one.As expected in Poirot mysteries, the end is very much unpredictable but the last two chapters of the novel are highly unrealistic. One notable point is the presence of Ariadne Oliver, the mystery novel writer , who is the alter ego of Agatha Christie herself.

Read this only if you like mysteries in general and Christie's work in particular. 3 out of 5.