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Love on The Rocks
'What happened to Gary?'
'He was lying on the floor, dead.'
'Congratulations, Raghav. Your investigation has reached the next level, from theft to probable homicide!'
Newly-wed Sancha is excited about sailing with her husband, an officer in the merchant navy, on board the Sea Hyena. But Chief Officer Aaron Andrews is keeping a secret from his wife—a month before she arrived, the chief cook was found dead in the meat locker, his death ruled an accident. First Engineer Harsh Castillo is enamoured of his best friend Aaron's bride, but that's the least of his problems. The demons he's battling have a stronger pull on him.
When money is stolen from the captain's safe, the inquisitive Sancha makes a game of finding the thief. What she finds, instead, is a murder. With the evidence implicating her husband, Sancha is at a crossroads— should she tell Raghav Shridhar, the investigating officer, about the money or should she give her secretive husband the benefit of the doubt?
'He was lying on the floor, dead.'
'Congratulations, Raghav. Your investigation has reached the next level, from theft to probable homicide!'
Newly-wed Sancha is excited about sailing with her husband, an officer in the merchant navy, on board the Sea Hyena. But Chief Officer Aaron Andrews is keeping a secret from his wife—a month before she arrived, the chief cook was found dead in the meat locker, his death ruled an accident. First Engineer Harsh Castillo is enamoured of his best friend Aaron's bride, but that's the least of his problems. The demons he's battling have a stronger pull on him.
When money is stolen from the captain's safe, the inquisitive Sancha makes a game of finding the thief. What she finds, instead, is a murder. With the evidence implicating her husband, Sancha is at a crossroads— should she tell Raghav Shridhar, the investigating officer, about the money or should she give her secretive husband the benefit of the doubt?
224 pages, Paperback
First published March 3, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 8, 2011
This is only Metro Reads I have read. It's part of Penguin's series that has love stories/pulp fiction. So far I haven't bothered to read these.
But, I picked this up from the library only because of my personal interest in the writer. The writer is a lady who was a co-coordinator for helping an illiterate couple to bring up abandoned HIV+ kids. This lady helps them raise funds, spread word and created a web site - http://www.sparshbalgram.com/. While I was communicating with her to get in touch abut the kids, I learnt that her book was just released.
So, even though I picked up the book out of curiosity, the book didn't turn out to be bad. Rather it was a perfect read for a nightly bus ride. Set on a ship (which interested me since I worked for two years in shipping industry) it has a plot involving suspense and intrigue.
Book has been narrated from different POVs of the characters. The main protagonist is a couple, a chief engineer whose wife joins him onboard ship. Only woman on the ship that has all-male crew. Weird accidents happen on ship that eventually rip the couple apart. A good fast read.
But, I picked this up from the library only because of my personal interest in the writer. The writer is a lady who was a co-coordinator for helping an illiterate couple to bring up abandoned HIV+ kids. This lady helps them raise funds, spread word and created a web site - http://www.sparshbalgram.com/. While I was communicating with her to get in touch abut the kids, I learnt that her book was just released.
So, even though I picked up the book out of curiosity, the book didn't turn out to be bad. Rather it was a perfect read for a nightly bus ride. Set on a ship (which interested me since I worked for two years in shipping industry) it has a plot involving suspense and intrigue.
Book has been narrated from different POVs of the characters. The main protagonist is a couple, a chief engineer whose wife joins him onboard ship. Only woman on the ship that has all-male crew. Weird accidents happen on ship that eventually rip the couple apart. A good fast read.
May 12, 2011
Set on a ship, Love on the Rocks is a murder mystery seen through the eyes of Sancha. Newly Wedded to Aaron a merchant navy sailor, she joins him on the ship; Sea Hyena expecting adventure & romance.
The idle life changes for Sancha when a huge stash of money is stolen from the captain’s room. All alone & with loads of time on her hand she tries to unravel the mystery of the theft but ends up discovering that the accidental death which had happened 20 days before her joining the ship was actually a murder. A little prodding and she knew that there was more than what meets the eyes.
The ship is full of colorful characters like the Captain Popeye (infamous for his temper & porn movie collection), 1st Engineer Harsh Castillo (who is fighting his own demons of a divorce & an alleged violent behavior) & then there is Baldy, a fresh cadet (who was tortured & humiliated time & again by his seniors). Each of them has a motive & is a suspect for Sancha but when the clues she has implicate even her hubby Aaron she doesn’t know whom & what to trust.
Will she find the murderer & the thief or would she end up being the victim? Read the murder mystery to know more.
Narrated from the point of view of each character the book makes for an interesting read. It gives us an insight of what each suspect is thinking but the author leaves you hanging with suspense at precisely the right point. It is however the voice of Manna which you would really like to unravel.
Manna first appears in the prologue which sets the tone of the book. Without revealing much I will only say that after reading the prologue you will feel that Manna is your guy but which character is Manna is on you to guess and I must say that the debutant author has managed to keep the suspense quite well which is no mean feat :-) She give out enough hints to keep you glued to the book.
Well written & well paced the author has enough twists & turns up her sleeves to keep you guessing. I consider myself good at solving murder mysteries had my own suspect but the twists & turns ensured that I couldn’t guess the murder.
The book comes with its downsides, after building the scenario quite well the point where the culprit is revealed was a let down for me because of mainly two reasons. One, it was quite hurried & two, the motive not so convincing. The ending of the book is again an open ended one & if you know me you know that I have my own reservations on it. I need a closure especially when it is a murder mystery. Another issue that I had was with the frequent stitching over from formal names to the nick names of the characters, but I guess I should blame my memory for that ;-)
All in all it was a good time pass masala read for a rainy day. Pick it up when you are travelling, time will fly while you are reading this. A good murder mystery to have come out of the nest of Contemporary Indian Authors which is a rarity.
The idle life changes for Sancha when a huge stash of money is stolen from the captain’s room. All alone & with loads of time on her hand she tries to unravel the mystery of the theft but ends up discovering that the accidental death which had happened 20 days before her joining the ship was actually a murder. A little prodding and she knew that there was more than what meets the eyes.
The ship is full of colorful characters like the Captain Popeye (infamous for his temper & porn movie collection), 1st Engineer Harsh Castillo (who is fighting his own demons of a divorce & an alleged violent behavior) & then there is Baldy, a fresh cadet (who was tortured & humiliated time & again by his seniors). Each of them has a motive & is a suspect for Sancha but when the clues she has implicate even her hubby Aaron she doesn’t know whom & what to trust.
Will she find the murderer & the thief or would she end up being the victim? Read the murder mystery to know more.
Narrated from the point of view of each character the book makes for an interesting read. It gives us an insight of what each suspect is thinking but the author leaves you hanging with suspense at precisely the right point. It is however the voice of Manna which you would really like to unravel.
Manna first appears in the prologue which sets the tone of the book. Without revealing much I will only say that after reading the prologue you will feel that Manna is your guy but which character is Manna is on you to guess and I must say that the debutant author has managed to keep the suspense quite well which is no mean feat :-) She give out enough hints to keep you glued to the book.
Well written & well paced the author has enough twists & turns up her sleeves to keep you guessing. I consider myself good at solving murder mysteries had my own suspect but the twists & turns ensured that I couldn’t guess the murder.
The book comes with its downsides, after building the scenario quite well the point where the culprit is revealed was a let down for me because of mainly two reasons. One, it was quite hurried & two, the motive not so convincing. The ending of the book is again an open ended one & if you know me you know that I have my own reservations on it. I need a closure especially when it is a murder mystery. Another issue that I had was with the frequent stitching over from formal names to the nick names of the characters, but I guess I should blame my memory for that ;-)
All in all it was a good time pass masala read for a rainy day. Pick it up when you are travelling, time will fly while you are reading this. A good murder mystery to have come out of the nest of Contemporary Indian Authors which is a rarity.
June 17, 2015
Newly-wed Sancha is excited about sailing with her husband, an officer in the merchant navy, on board the Sea Hyena. But Chief Officer Aaron Andrews is keeping a secret from his wife—a month before she arrived, the chief cook was found dead in the meat locker, his death ruled an accident. First Engineer Harsh Castillo is enamoured of his best friend Aaron’s bride, but that’s the least of his problems. The demons he’s battling have a stronger pull on him. When money is stolen from the captain's safe, the inquisitive Sancha makes a game of finding the thief. What she finds, instead, is a murder. With the evidence implicating her husband, Sancha is at a crossroads— should she tell Raghav Shridhar, the investigating officer, about the money or should she give her secretive husband the benefit of the doubt?
The book throws up a relatively unexplored setting in Indian Fiction about life on a ship. The narrative is full of twists and turns and the pace is brisk. All the characters, even though under developed in some cases, bring a tinge of humour and sarcasm with them. All this makes up for some interesting conversations interspersed in the background of solving a murder mystery. I particularly enjoyed the banter between Sancha and Aaron, latter of whom is dealing with a bitter divorce and still can't help falling for best friend's wife.
The thing which left me underwhelmed was that the murder mystery starts well into 75 odd pages. For a book at 210 pages, that's a really late start. No doubt, you need to establish each of the characters on the ship but i just wished it could have been done a little differently since the resolution of murder happens almost as a second thought. I personally found the change in the tone where the narrative is taken forward from each of the characters point of view a bit unsettling, specially when their real names and nicknames both are used generously all through the book.
But if you can get past these roadblocks, there is fun to be had. Most of which lies in the setting where all the events pan out. The mystery resolution done from the point of view of different characters is unique, though won't provide the requisite closure for many readers. The few poems in between the narrative are quirky and deserve the second look. The lucid and 'grey' interactions between the characters is the back bone of this book. The climax is all good in poetic justice sense, but is quite guessable much before the end.
I am going with generous (2.5+0.5)=3/5 for Ismita Tandon Dhankher's Love on the Rocks. It does not have the tight screenplay of No Flying from Fate nor the psychological games of The body in the back seat but will provide you enough fodder to keep going. Read it because it is set in an unique world and has bunch of wonderful moments to savour.
The book throws up a relatively unexplored setting in Indian Fiction about life on a ship. The narrative is full of twists and turns and the pace is brisk. All the characters, even though under developed in some cases, bring a tinge of humour and sarcasm with them. All this makes up for some interesting conversations interspersed in the background of solving a murder mystery. I particularly enjoyed the banter between Sancha and Aaron, latter of whom is dealing with a bitter divorce and still can't help falling for best friend's wife.
The thing which left me underwhelmed was that the murder mystery starts well into 75 odd pages. For a book at 210 pages, that's a really late start. No doubt, you need to establish each of the characters on the ship but i just wished it could have been done a little differently since the resolution of murder happens almost as a second thought. I personally found the change in the tone where the narrative is taken forward from each of the characters point of view a bit unsettling, specially when their real names and nicknames both are used generously all through the book.
But if you can get past these roadblocks, there is fun to be had. Most of which lies in the setting where all the events pan out. The mystery resolution done from the point of view of different characters is unique, though won't provide the requisite closure for many readers. The few poems in between the narrative are quirky and deserve the second look. The lucid and 'grey' interactions between the characters is the back bone of this book. The climax is all good in poetic justice sense, but is quite guessable much before the end.
I am going with generous (2.5+0.5)=3/5 for Ismita Tandon Dhankher's Love on the Rocks. It does not have the tight screenplay of No Flying from Fate nor the psychological games of The body in the back seat but will provide you enough fodder to keep going. Read it because it is set in an unique world and has bunch of wonderful moments to savour.
December 10, 2014
An interesting plot! The flow of the story is good and the way the mystery is unraveled is commendable. The best point about the book is the story is told from viewpoints of different people, which as a writer I love it so much and it makes the story very interesting for the readers as well. The character sketch of Sancha and Aaron was amazing and the author did full justice to the mystery and thriller sketches that is to be the heart of the novel. I expected many romantic encounters but was disappointed on that note. 'Love on the Rocks’, is a romantic thriller that tests the bonds of love and marriage against a backdrop of suspense, murder, so-called suicide and many psychological undercurrents. And when you reach the last page, you will feel worth spending the time reading the book for hours.
Read the full review here
Read the full review here
September 24, 2012
A good read. The ending wasn't what I was expecting. Surprises are always good.
February 22, 2013
Amazing book; Easy flow of language; great suspense; well-building of characters. The authors has unfolded the d ark side of nature of a person. A good read for suspense lovers.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews