It looks that after his previous book ‘The Girl in Room 105’ popular author Chetan Bhagat has turned his attention to murder mystery. His latest novel ‘One Arranged Murder’ is a thriller. Yes. In the real sense.

As usual, the story is set in the milieu of a wealthy Punjabi family in Delhi The Malhotras are stinking rich and epicureans as expected. Ramesh Malhotra, a dealer of luxury Porsche and Volkswagen cars in Delhi, lives in a posh locality with his extended family; a beta, beti, bhai, behan, maaji, bahu and a bhateeji from US also. His pet daughter Prerna is engaged in a grand ceremony to a fatso and a gourmet Saurabh who works for an investigating agency. Prerna, though a modern girl who runs a flourishing food delivery startup company wants to perform the famous ‘Karva Chauth’ even before her marriage. So Saurabh at the behest of his fiancée goes to meet her stealthily on that auspicious night. He couldn’t find her in the open terrace but finds the dead body of her on the road. Prerna seems to have fallen to death from the third floor in her perfect Karva Chauth attire.

Is it an accident or a murder?

Saurabh and his friend and colleague Keshav try to unveil the mystery that shrouds the death of Prerna. A host of people in the Malhotra clan with different characters, grudgingly supporting police force and one more unexpected death in the family and a budding love between Keshav and a Malhotra khandan girl from US take the slightly long narrative to a surprising denouement.

An engaging tale of love, friendship, stupidity, ostentation of wealth, hatred and murder all are weaved with fairly interesting twists and turns.

Well. I cannot but wonder that among the present generation, impulses are more dominant than passion and future. It looks they prefer to live for the moment than for a future; be it food, sex, relationship or life. True, life’s values keep changing from time to time. Nevertheless, the book raises some questions in mind; is life fair enough to everyone? Probably, a moot point.

Read the book if you like either Chetan Bhagat or an engaging thriller.