Title Reveals New Book's Link to Filmmaking

Book Title: Kiss Me Quick Before I Shoot

Author: Guy Magar

www.kissmequickbeforeishoot.com
Genre: Memoir/Filmmaking
ISBN: 978-0982866344
Publisher: Sea Script Company; First edition (May 4, 2011)

Reviewed by  Vonnie Faroqui  for Inkslingers Whimsey

Rating: 5 Stars, 2 thumbs up

Kiss Me Quick Before I Shoot, is Hollywood filmmaker Guy Magar’s memoir detailing his journey from child immigrant, through college, years of filmmaking, and love along the way to becoming an accomplished director, writer and producer. In an industry known to gloss and glamorize a turd until it looks appealing, this book is being given all the best hype and promotional backing you might imagine the autobiography of a recognizable celebrity and talent would get. However, in this case the hype is REAL. Kiss Me Quick Before I Shoot deserves every bit of praise and recognition it gets and more.

For those of us that love the movies or have ever dreamed of, aspired to, danced around, or dived into a career in motion pictures or television, Kiss Me Quick is a “director’s cut” commentary of life on the road to and inside the industry. When I read Guy’s recollections and experiences, I wept just thinking of all the hopeful seekers and dreamers struggling for a break that never get one. The detailed behind-the-scenes knowledge and wisdom he so generously shares is beyond priceless to any aspiring film or television talent seeking entry into the industry. This is “must” reading for acting and directing students seeking film and television careers. Theater and film school do not prepare you for the cold reality of the industry, but Guy’s conversational and revealing memoir sure will.

Readers looking for a Hollywood fix, an insider’s candid perspective on breaking into the business or stories of life among the stars will lock themselves behind closed doors to indulge their celluloid passions with this master story teller. I think I’m in love. Too bad Guy is taken. Which leads me to another aspect of this book, which I think places it a cut above other memoirs and books of its genre. Kiss Me Quick is more than a Hollywood success story, it also relates the very real human drama and love story between Guy and his wife, Jacqui; sharing intimate details of her diagnosis with Leukemia and of the trial medical treatments that saved her life. Guy opens his heart and with incredible spirit, courage, and candor shares it all.

The creativity and passion which infuses Guy’s film work also comes through in his writing. Kiss Me Quick Before I Shoot has all the excitement , flare, human interest , and drama Hollywood promises the hopeful, with a measure of reality, and God’s grace thrown in. Both of my thumbs are up for Magar’s Kiss Me Quick Before I Shoot. Hand me the popcorn. I am reading that again.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Chick Lit Reviewed by Blogger/Reviewer

Title – Something Blue

Author – Emily Giffin
Author’s Website – http://www.emilygiffin.com
Genre - Chicklit
ISBN-10: 0312323867
ISBN-13: 978-0312323868

Originally reviewed by Lyndsay Digneo for her Simply Lyndsay blog

After reading and loving Emily Giffin's first novel, Something Borrowed, so much, I was anxious to read the sequel, Something Blue, which highlights the flip side. Again, Giffin didn't disappoint me. Something Blue is a must read after Something Borrowed.

Darcy Rhone has sailed through life by using her good looks and smooth charm. Rules? She didn't play by them. And karma? She never worried about it. However, her seemingly perfect life gets flipped up-side-down when she learns her "plain Jane," good girl best friend, Rachel, has had an affair and fallen in love with her fiancé. To add to her predicament, she finds herself pregnant and alone.

For the first time, Darcy is struck with the harsh reality that her life has become. While she doesn't fully grasp that her lack of sincerity and 30 years of not playing by the rules has led her to her current situation, Darcy decides to start fresh and flees from her luxurious New York City apartment to London, where she bunks with her childhood friend, Ethan, in his one bedroom flat. When Darcy first arrives in London, she's still very much the superficial Darcy. However, as her pregnancy progresses, Darcy's outlook on life, love, and what truly matters transforms as well.

One of the things I love most about Giffin's writing is her ability to characterize the characters of her books so well in addition to highlighting tough life decisions. I made a similar comment in my review of Something Borrowed, but I think it's worth repeating. Giffin makes a subtle case throughout the story that life decisions aren't always black and white. There is a lot of gray area, and sometimes you just have to live life to realize that truth and learn from it.

Something Blue was most definitely the other half of Something Borrowed. I was happy to gain more insight into Darcy's point of view, but more importantly, I enjoyed how Giffin tied up the loose ends of Rachel and Darcy's saga. If you haven't already, place Giffin's second novel on your summer reading list so you can find out exactly what is Darcy's "something blue!"

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

A Book Tour Parents of Young Kids and Teachers Will Love

Parents and teachers will love this book tour coming to you from author Kathy Stemke. Scroll down for trivia questions and how to win prizes (fun ones!), but be sure to read the synopsis of this great little children's book, too, and the sample workbook questions designed to make learning fun!

When Zachary puts on his thick black glasses, he becomes a super hero. This enables him to protect his new baby sister from all kinds of problems. In the process he learns how much he loves her. This action packed book with clever rhymes focuses on teaching consonant blends. The teacher supplement includes comprehension questions, songs, worksheets and activities.

In Kathy Stemke’s  book, Sh Sh Sh Let the Baby Sleep, you will find adorable rhymes for each of the following consonant blends: sh, br, th, ch, and gr. Parents and teachers will find these as well as the activities in the back of the book useful for teaching these blended sounds to children. As a retired kindergarten teacher, Kathy always includes comprehension questions, activities, songs, rhymes, and worksheets in her books to help children learn.  Here’s some additional educational activities to go with the book.

Teacher’s Language Guide  

Sh Sh Sh Let the Baby Sleep

Comprehension Questions:

·      Look over the cover. What do you think the story is about?

·      Name the letters in the title.

·      Note that SH is a consonant blend. Practice its sound. What does it mean?

·      Read the book using volume, pitch and tone variation.

·      Who is the main Character? Why do you think so?

·      Do you know anybody like Zachary?

·      What happened to Zachary when he put his black glasses on?

·      How did Zachary stop Mr. Wind?

·      Why did the baby bird squawk?

·      How did the train wake up Layla?

·      How did the train help Layla fall asleep?

·      What did the grizzly bear give Layla?

·      What did Zachary learn by the end of the story?

·      What is your favorite part of the story? Why?

Finish the Sentence:

·      The baby’s blanket flew out of the _______________.

·      Zachary flew the baby bird right back to its soft ________.

·      Super Zachary zoomed up to the whistle and tied it down with a ___________.

·      “Come aboard,” said the friendly __________________.

·      At that moment a giant grizzly bear stomped out of the _____________.

·      Zachary leaped into action and jumped on the bear’s __________.

·      “I love my little _______________.”

Name the Shapes:

Mom smiled and handed him a book.

·      What shape are the wheels on the stroller/

·      What shape is the book?

·      What shape is the Kid’s Corner decal on Zachary’s shirt?

·      What shape are the eyebrows?

Consonant Blend Song

(Tune: Row, Row, Row Your Boat)

Sh, sh, sh don’t cry.

Quiet, not a peep.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Layla goes to sleep.

Br, Br, Br, it’s cold.

Mister Wind blows strong.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Layla sleeps so long.

Th, th, th thank you,

Said the little bird.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Layla never heard.

Ch, ch, ch the train

Whistled down the line.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Layla sleeps just fine.

Gr, gr, gr growled bear.

Won’t you come and play?

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Layla sleeps all day.

Consonant Blend Musical Chairs

·      Line up chairs in a circle facing out.

·      On 8” by 11” card stock write various consonant blends. Place them face down on the chairs.

·      Walk around the circle singing the consonant blend song. When finished, each child picks up a card and sits.

·      Taking turns around the circle, the children say the blend on their card.

·      If they cannot read it, they must leave the game. Remove their chair.

Consonant Blend Action Rhyme!

Consonant blends are fun to do.

Read them all with me, won’t you?

         Float and flutter in the sun.

Twist and twirl and have some fun.

Dribble and drive down the street.

Crawl and crouch on your own feet.

Swing and swim on the big lake.

Prance on in and bake a cake.

Try to fly up in the sky.

Fry some eggs and ask me why.

Consonant blends really rock.

Practice them around the clock!

There are more fun worksheets and activities at the back of the book! dancekam1@yahoo.com

SUPERHERO TRIVIA QUESTION: DAY 18

Which superhero can fly and gets stronger when he puts on his thick black glasses?

Come to http://educationtipster.blogspot.com  July 4^th for the answer.

SUPERHERO TRIVIA ANSWER: DAY 17

He's technically an alien, and he calls himself Clark Kent. His superpowers are said to derive partly from exposure to Earth's yellow sun, but which planet did he come from?

ANSWER: Krypton. He is, of course, Superman. He was introduced in 1932, by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shusterbackstory has evolved over the years, and details vary, but he always comes from Krypton, under the giant red star known as Rao.

Remember; Every answer or comment you make during this book tour puts your name in the hat for a fantastic prize, which includes amazon gift certificates, books, superhero figurines, and much more.

There will be drawings at the end of the tour from those who comment or answer a superhero trivia question on this or any other site during the tour from June 13^th-July 5^th. Please include your email address in a safe format like this one: dancekam1(at)yahoo(dot) com

Sh Sh Sh Let the Baby Sleep can be found:

Amazon:Use the widget on this blog post to take you directly to the sales page.

----- The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Education Book Gets Late But Great Debut

Title: This Business of Children

Author: Chloe Jon Paul
Author's Web site link: http://chloejonpaul.com
Genre or category: fiction
ISBN: 978-1-60047-580-1

Reviewed by Teresa Morrow (http://www.teresamorrow.com)

 

 Chloe Jon Paul wrote this book in the early 90s and tucked it away thinking that it would never get published. She wrotge This Business of Children because I wanted to capture the elements of this profession in a way that shows the struggles so many teachers face in trying to do their jobs well. At this particular time in my career she wasn’t very happy teaching in the school district I had transferred to out of state. She was forced to “teach to the test” and my creativity suffered immensely. Administrative support was non-existent so she took a leave of absence for a year and went back to Maine where she had done the best teaching of her career, and wrote the book.

Chloe Jon Paul says, "The message of This Business of Children  basically this: We teachers are human beings coping with the problems in our own personal lives. When we enter that classroom each morning, we have to shelve those problems and deal with students whose problems may be far greater than our own."

Bill Page said it best in his review: Teachers will identify with every element of this insightful, riveting glimpse of the education world. Parents will enjoy comparing their own schooling with Vera’s portrayal of getting an education. And, every reader will savor the reminder that life goes on.

Bill Page is a teacher. He is also author of At-Risk Students: Feeling Their Pain; goes on. Understanding Their Plight; and Accepting Their Defensive Ploys. He has written 60 articles for www.teachers.net/Gazette 

About the author:

Chloe Jon Paul, M.Ed., is a retired educator and writer of several published articles and a previous book entitled “What Happens Next: A Family Guide to Nursing Home Visits” and More…   Her many achievements since the age of 55 include:

• Title of Ms. Maryland Senior America 2003

• Recipient of the Fulbright Fellowship Seminars Abroad award to South Africa, 1996
• Volunteer internship during the 2005 Maryland legislative session as a Legacy Leadership Institute graduate
• Lead facilitator for the Alternatives to Violence Project in prison and community workshops on conflict resolution for ten years
• State representative for the National Family Caregivers Association’s caregiver community action network 2006-2008
• Advisory board member: MD, Healthcare Commission and the Interagency Commission for Aging Services: Maryland Dept. of Aging
• Hospice and homeless shelter volunteer
• Coordinator for the Good Samaritan Project at her church
• World traveler – all 7 continents

~Reviewer Teresa Morrow does Online Book Promotion for Authors & Writers
at Key Book Promotions, http://www.keybookpromotions.com.

My blog: Key Business Partners Writers & Authors: Allow Your Writing Passion to Drive your Online Book Marketing

----- The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Well Known Poet Reviewed by Street Artist with Knack for Words

Title: Swallow

Author: Jendi Reiter

Author's Web site: www.jendireiter.com

Publisher: Amsterdam Press, 2009

Publisher's Web site:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/30258321/swallow-by-jendi-reiter

Genre: Poetry Chapbook

ISBN 10: 0—9822221—5—7
ISBN 13: 978—0—9822221—5—7

Reviewed at Ampersand Books website by Martha Rzadkowolsky-Raoli

Jendi Reiter created a tidy poetry book in which swallow means everything you can expect swallow to mean. She exhausts the word; its mashed remains a mix of cow meat, desire, intestines, bird. If you read the book, and you should, you’ll experience the beating of the word. Swallow. How else to learn something new ?(about the parameters of language) — – something only poetry can do, and these poems do it. Let me tell you how this book satisfies me.

I want a tight machine of a poem. The sound and look of its words should feel immutable, as movable type rendered tight, for letterpress. The first line of the book, seemingly fixed, knocked me out:

“We are all trying not to think about sex or food.”

So true, Jendi Reiter, so true. The line feels familiar, which is to say, it feels like someone ought to have said it. If it rings familiar it’s because it’s so right on. It should have been said.

Maxims and Tombstones

I can see it (“We are all trying not to think about sex or food”) engraved in Jenny Holzer’s marble slabs. Or on a tombstone. Or accompanying a New Yorker comic. Or as a bumper sticker (such an undervalued medium for speaking to a captive audience, considering the traffic in the city) Some of the other maxims suggest to me their own possible context:

“Beautiful women have not confided in you.” (found in a fortune cookie.)

“You can still tremble unstrung,” (emo song lyric.)
“You have to look at whatever the hand wants,” (salesgirl pitch)
“Every proposition starts with a cow,” (butcher treatise)
“Better to sit here with knives/ spinning the sun in a bowl,” (folk wisdom)

By suggesting disparate contexts, these aphorisms maintain a collaged-world view. I like Reiter’s objection to a poetics bound by singular points of view. I like when word-artists comply with the rules of our new universe (a mess of sources coming at you from everywhere: billboards, email, the doorman). This kind of work feels real. Reiter acknowledges this multi-media world when she asks of the swallows in “Goodbye Capistrano”:

“How would they know what lies ahead, without telephones, without magazines?”

Love this. Indeed, without our iphones and Vanity Fair, how would we?

Object-Crazy

I’m drawn to things. These poems are tactile; Reiter is object-crazy throughout. The objects in these poems bely an organized universe: objects that don’t belong together are crammed into a stanza. Including this passage, from “Pill”, which lets loose all kinds of matter:

“Pupil, meteorite crater, drill, data, cell, needle, library, wrecking ball, cowboy, funnel, dime bag, pill, camera, sparks, pinhole, eye.”

In “How to Fail a Personality Test”, the thing-y, evidential bent of the book, offers: Household cleansers, tailbone, bat, velvet cape, pelvis, tails, pictures, crab, toad, lace mantilla, clouds, horse, ceiling, map, clouds, popsicle stick, chair.

These things are responses to Rorschach blots. In the dialectic of this poem, the operative question is: What does the viewer see? How does what the viewer sees reveal his personality?

It’s the nature of Rorschach tests to determine meaning, to decode whatever the patient says he sees. Pupil, meteorite crater, drill, data, cell, needle. The things that are “seen” must first be coded, in order to be decoded.

When I read this poem, I don’t have a trusty code. Derrida (who makes small appearance in this poem) would ask, What do these things “signify”? What do these images say? and “Why this picture?” and not that? Neither I (nor the administrator of the poem’s Rorschach test) can draw from a tried-and-true semiotics.

Body I & Body II

I like the rhetorical dissonance between these two poems, with linear-sequential titles. They beg to be read and reread together. There’s a sphinx-dialectic at work within each one and between them too. They speak to each other, poem to poem. Here’s a line from each:

BODY I “Keep washing till it smells like nobody”

BODY II “I would have to become nobody”

Both Body I and Body II, with two really distinct rhetorical stances, share the shaky sense that the internal logic of the poem is slippery. The dialectic is established by non-sequiters. Some delightfully nutty ones that are very Theatre of the Absurd. Here’s some of the wacky interior logic at work:

BODY I        BODY II

“Here’s the body the body
was born in: In the ground”

“There is no way I would tell you these things without wearing my real hair. I would have to play the piano first…”

“Here’s the thing the body needed:
Take it away boys take it away.” (I love this little soft-shoe)

“You’re the salt in my coffee, the cream in my stew. There are a lot of people I would have to swallow first before you.”

Reiter’s rhetorical tricks can remind me of the riddle-ish catechism I was taught. The relationship between premises in these poems get downright eucharistic on logic’s ass. Mysterious pronouncements sound as zany as any church stories of body-magic: The body jesus lived in, the jesus body that is the eucharist, and the jesus body that you put into your body. Here’s Reiter’s esoteric cosmology of the body/soul conundrum:

“Here’s the thing about the body:
there’s no one inside”
“Here’s the body that went into the body… “There are a lot of people I would have to swallow first before you.”
“What holds the body becomes a body…”

These lines are really beautiful to me because they are honest about how little we know.

Hunger and Hungered

A sweeping hunger contains these poems, unites them, How to sate the appetite? Should it be sated? What terrors befall the One-Who-Swallows? The- One-Swallowed? And which one is which? Are they one and the same?

Is our hunger why we swallow? Or are we swallowed by our hunger? More importantly: Am I the body that went into the body? Or am I what holds the body? And if so, who did I become? And if so, did I swallow? And if so, I hope that I liked it. I’m sure I did.

~Martha Rzadkowolsky-Raoli is a street artist.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Well Known Marketer Give Tips for Facebook Marketing

Facebook Guide for Authors

By Dana Lynn Smith

Web page URL: http://www.SavvyBookMarketer.com
Direct link to book page: http://bookmarketingmaven.typepad.com/savvy_book_marketer/facebook.html
Category: publishing/marketing
ISBN – none (ebook)

Originally Reviewed by  Nick Daws for Nick Daws’ Writing Blog

I was pleased to receive a review copy of the fully revised, third edition of Facebook Guide for Authors by Dana Lynn Smith, aka The Savvy Book Marketer. Here's what I thought of it...

The guide is provided in the form of a downloadable, 79-page PDF. My first impression was that it is exceptionally well written and presented. It's printed in a clean, sharp, sans serif font, with screengrab illustrations where appropriate.

I was also impressed that the table of contents is fully hyperlinked, not just to the main chapter headings but to the section headings as well.

Dana starts by talking about online networking in general. This is a sensible approach, as it puts Facebook into perspective with other social networking sites such as Twitter and LinkedIn. The guide doesn't go into great detail about these other networks, but there are nonetheless some good suggestions on developing an overall strategy for promoting yourself and your work. Dana also reveals common mistakes people new to social networking as a promotional tool make.

The next chapter, Get Started With Facebook, is aimed at complete newcomers to Facebook. Dana takes the reader through setting up their personal profile, adding a profile photograph (and other photos and videos), adjusting privacy and notifications settings, how to import blog posts into Facebook, and so on.

Following this, in Network With Facebook, Dana talks about actually using Facebook to build your network of contacts. She discusses making friends on Facebook and responding to friend requests. Personally, though, I found the latter part of this chapter most interesting. This covers the sorts of things authors can post about on Facebook, how to gain added visibility for your updates using "tagging", and steps you can take to ensure that your updates get maximum prominence in your friends' or followers' news feeds. There are some great ideas here that I will certainly be trying out myself in future.

The manual then goes on to discuss other methods of promoting yourself on Facebook, including Fan Pages, Groups (both "Old" and "New"), Events, Questions, and advertising. This is all invaluable, thought-provoking stuff, and bang up to date (I don't even have Facebook Questions on my own Facebook Page yet - Dana says this feature is being rolled out gradually). Again, there are lots of ideas I plan to try out here.

The guide concludes with a list of common mistakes users make, and suggested daily and weekly routines for getting the most from Facebook while not letting it take over your life!

Do I have any criticisms of Facebook Guide for Authors? Well, I might just like to have seen a bit more discussion about how to use Facebook strategically, e.g. whether it's a good idea to have a Fan Page for every title you write, or just have one main author Page instead. Still, I guess this is probably a decision every author needs to make for him- or herself.

Overall, if you want to get up to speed with using Facebook as a promotional tool (and you almost certainly should), I highly recommend Facebook Guide for Authors, especially with its modest $15 price tag. It's definitely going to be my "bible" where Facebook is concerned from now on.

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  The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Slum Dog Millionaire Writer Pens New Novel

Title: Six Suspects
Author: Vikas Swarup
ISBN: 878-0-385-60816-9

Reviewed by Aakanksha Singh, Mumbai, India
The dearth of Indian crime fiction has been partially saved by the novel 'Six Suspects' written by Vikas Swarup, better known for his novel, 'Q and A' that was adapted into the Oscar winning film, 'Slumdog Millionaire.' While 'Q and A' was a rather amateurish, not at all researched book with bits of faulty writing, 'Six Suspects' is a tad bit better. While it has its own flaws, it is nonetheless a pretty good detective/thriller story that exposes the corrupt India and has a story that will be lavished by detective fiction lovers/fans.

Taken from fantasticfiction.co.uk

The plot revolves around Vicky Rai's (the son of the Home Minister of Uttar Pradesh) murder that took place while he was partying at his farmhouse in Delhi to celebrate his acquittal in a Jessica Lall style murder case(only in the book, the girl who was shot dead by Vicky was named Ruby Gill). There are essentially six suspects that are detained by the police as they were found carrying guns. Then, aptly, Swarup goes on and gives elaborate descriptions about all the six suspects and their motives to kill Vicky Rai. The six suspects are a motley crowd-including a sexy actress, an American,a mobile thief, Vicky's own father, a tribal from Andaman and a former chief secretary of Uttar Pradesh. These stories are cleverly interconnected and intelligently converge at Vicky Rai's farmhouse. In the end, an investigative journalist, Arun Advani, solves this murder mystery and the end is, I might say, quite unanticipated! The murderer is an unexpected one.

The story is well structured, with quite a few twists and turns that are definitely surprising.

Along with giving massive details about the life stories of all the six suspects, which by the way takes up a large chunk of the novel, Vikas Swarup also highlights the corruption rampant in India's politics, displays the divide between the rich and poor and the different classes, the world of powerful contacts and influences and several more such instances that reveal the sleazy side of India.

Despite 'Six Suspects' being a good detective read, it still has certain weak spots. Firstly, Vikas Swarup tries to put in a lot of information about India in the novel and most of it is sadly lifted from 'breaking news' sessions of the Indian TV channels that can get monotonous. This aspect makes it look like 'Six Suspects was written for foreign audiences and Swarup was aiming for this book to be made into a film as well. It seems there is a lack of originality. Secondly, certain ideas are rather stereotyped like the American's view of India when he comes for the first time, the bit about Islamic fundamentalists is also very cliched(all Muslims are terrorists and all that crap). Although the story has an unpredictable end, there are times when the stories of the six suspects get predictable-for example, the tribal from Andaman has to be foolish and get duped by several people in India. Why can't the tribals be intelligent for once?And there are several such examples.

There are certain creative bits as well like the English Literature professor ,which the former Chief Secretary met in jail, who expresses himself by uttering book titles only.

So the final verdict would be that 'Six Suspects' is definitely worth a read, a good crime novel that unfortunately shows only a newspaper version of India and does not delve deeper into India's chaotic soul. From the writing it becomes apparent that the India of 'Six Suspects' though very real still has a touch of being seen from a distant lens. The lack of research shows through. So if one knows nothing about India, one can probably grab this book to know about its underbelly and get some background on all the wrong things that happened in the country in the past decade or so.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :