Second Lives

by Anish Sarkar

Three old friends—Sara, Neel and Omar—reunite in Goa after the sudden death of Rachel Fernandes, a member of their group. Discovering that Rachel, a sports journalist, had been doing a story on the brutal killing of a foreign tourist, they are puzzled by her interest in such a grisly crime. It emerges that Rachel’s investigation went far beyond a single murder, and their lives are soon under threat too.With a traumatic event from their teenage years coming back to haunt them, the trio realises that the mystery has its roots in their own past. In the midst of battling their personal demons, they make a desperate plan to flush out a sadistic killer in the sylvan setting of their old boarding school in the Himalayan foothills. With the body count rising and long-buried secrets tumbling out, will they succeed?

254 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 7, 2016

Reviews

[Abhilash Ruhela · Rating 4 out of 5]

The thriller genre is finding too many takers in the Indian publishing world currently as foreign authors are been challenged at the Bestseller's List. I am getting lots of good thriller to read these days even when the famous thriller writers, Ravi S and Ashwin S, are not releasing their books since last few months. I completed reading Anish Sarkar's Second Lives this week which is published by Westland Publication. This 350-pages book is definitely a page-turner and keeps you hooked throughout. The writing style of Sarkar is wonderful which keeps you intrigued and you want to finish the book in the single reading. Actually in this case, I would suggest the readers to not take too many breaks while reading this book as you might end up getting confused between the several murders that happens in the story.

The characterization of all the 5 friends is wonderfully done by the author and you can relate with each one of them. I also liked author's idea of writing chapters in first voice of each of the 3-4 main characters. Though it became confusing at times about whose version I am reading but still writing a thriller with this perspective is surely commendable. Author reveals half-story of any scene initially and later on discloses the whole thing which keeps the reader excited about anything might get disclosed now. Same feeling that we get while watching the Bollywood's Race series.

The biggest problem with this book is its predictability in the 2nd half. You almost understand what will happen next if in case you have read many thrillers. I never like when a new character is introduced in the end and given the whole attention all of a sudden and a thriller where we have kept guessing the murderer among the central characters. Like it happened in Novoneel's latest The Stranger's Trilogy. In the pre-climax, a new character is introduced and defined as the Mr. X all of us have been guessing while reading the story. It takes away the interest of the reader that the book has been getting right from the first page. Also I didn't like how each of the character ends up having affair with some character who gets revealed to be the partner-in-crime later on or a part of the story. But still this book is worth reading. I give it 3.5 stars out of 5.

Thanks.

ABHILASH RUHELA - VEERU!!!

[Anish Kumar · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have never read any thriller as bad as this one. The story starts on a good note and it grips your attention but the author is not able to carry it for long. There are 4 characters and you are struggling to find who is the protagonist and by the time you form an opinion it turns out to be somebody else who comes from the land of dead much later.. I was like huh. One of the friend towards the end dies mysteriously with no explanation whatsoever and the psychopath dies a normal death. If you have built your whole novel around mass murderings then you should at least let him beg for his life when its his turn but the author didnt see that perspective. Dont waste your time on this one guys

[Namrita Sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

The whole story revolves around five friends who later gets murdered by someone one by one. These people try to find the killer. The police did not have much support. I liked the characters Sara, Omar, Rachel and Neel.

This book divides into four parts. If you start reading this book then you can't get up without leaving to know the end of the story. Especially I liked the name of characters like Anna Grishin, D'Mello, Grigor, Writwik etc.

And the way of writing the story was amazing. This book was a bit confusing because of many characters and the way it is represented but at the end everything is paid off.

According to me, if a film was made on this book, it would be great. This was my first book of this author. I enjoyed the book very much. The book cover was also a headline for me which complelled me to pick and read it.

[Balaji Sriraman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though a murder mystery, this book portrays women characters in the book as sluts of all variety. Except only one, everyone was sleeping around. And if she was alive, she probably might have too. Can't believe I was reading the same book after a "robbery gone wrong" scene. They just move on! How in the world? From the "so called" brilliant set up to point to the wrong guy, I was able to guess everything until the very end. 3* only for the Roy character.

[Debmalya Roy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pathetic screenplay and plot. Fiction at its worst. Please dont buy ans read this book. Its a waste of time and money. Just utter nonsense going on throughout.

Utter nonsense . Please stop writing any further. No plot. No screenplay. No narrative. Absolute waste of time and money.

[Gayatheri Silvakumer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story but lacked variety and was quite draggy. The suspense was killed by the third quarter of the chapter and the ending was really dry.

[Ranjan Sundaram · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent

Pretty well written. I enjoyed it to some extent. I liked the settings, Goa, the mountains etc. Suspense was okay.

[Priyanka Gupta · Rating 5 out of 5]

A part of the story is missing :(

Good story but has a major part missing. Can't figure if it is a book error
But need to know what happened to the hill lady who saved Roy

[Nishant Bhagat · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting name for a second book by Anish. This one is a pacy murder mystery centered around lives of 5 friends. I completed reading this book in a couple of days. It was a decent read given the disclaimer of him being a part time writer in his introduction.

Anish's style of writing is very simple and easy to read. However, I wish he had not complicated it by narrating the story using each character as a narrator. When the pace is so fast it lands up confusing the reader as to whose point of view am I reading now is it Sara, Neel or Omar? I found myself going back to the start of the chapter to find out. However, once you get hooked on to tangled lives of these three there is no looking back. You want to finish the book.

Somehow towards the mid point of it I already formed an idea as to where this whole thing was going and it got pretty predictable. I felt the book's grip on me loosen and it became more a formality to complete it rather and wait in anticipation as to what is going to happen next. The climax seemed straight out of a Bollywood movie and it was quite a dampener. This book started with a lot of promise but leaves one wishing it had more.

[Rakhi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I had chill down my spine while reading the book. Not that I haven't read serial killer type thrillers before but may be the style of narration or something else. I had this eerie feeling creeping in my mind while reading the gruesome murders.
The depth of friendship between Sara, Neel and Omar was successfully portrayed by the author. Somewhere down the line it was disturbing to see that almost everyone had some or the other mental or psychological demons to handle. Author has succeeded in maintaining the intrigue till the end. Narration is alternative between Sara, Neel, Omar and the culprit. The sudden switch between narrators can be confusing. The book has cliff hanger in every chapter.
Overall, the book is a fast paced thriller with the capabilityof hooking the reader till the end.

Reviewed for the publisher
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book as a complimentary copy in exchange for a honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

[Deboleena Mookerjee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished the book in a couple of days. The style of the narrative was good, however, I had this distinct feeling that the book could have finished with a flourish at least a 100 pages short. It was almost as if the author had a particular culprit in mind, and then when the time came to unveil him, he changed his mind , as if he almost felt sorry for the character he had been building up to take the fall, hence, suddenly a new guy appears!

Initially, the book had me hooked. Unlike, most authors, his English did not make me cringe, the narrative though long, was fluid. It was somewhere, towards the end that the book started unravelling. The tightly wound plot started giving way, and finishing the book became more of a compulsion rather than eager anticipation, it ended more like a Bollywood movie than a suspense thriller!

Overall, it was a good read, and I will recommend it to my friends!

[Shelly Bajwa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a copy of this one in an Instagram giveaway hosted by Westland Books and I was beyond thrilled to find out that it was a thriller and not another love story. On to the review : The book is divided into 4 parts and written in the POV format. While I think that the POV format works well to entail a character and it's individuality, it also restricts the story and the narration if the characters aren't strongly built or portrayed, which is what happened with this one. The author put in a lot of work to create depths of the main protagonists by introducing them through a different language style and behaviour but it wasn't anywhere enough to make them stand out. The plot develops really slowly and crashes as an overload of information and suspense in the last half. It would have worked well if it hadn't been stretched, which is how it feels like quite a few times. The plot turns predictable after a few pages and it's an okay attempt if not a great one.

[Avnish · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book follows an easy to follow story-line. I loved the treatment of school friendship and plot. It had become a bit predictable in the end and was sprinkled with cliches but I'm not complaining :)

[Bharti · Rating 4 out of 5]

A crime thriller filled with secrets, teenage lust and Bollywood style crime solving by the lead characters. The pace of the story makes it a great read and the mystery element is done well. A perfect weekend read for fans of crime solving stories.

[Shuchita Tripathi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read. However many of the questions were left unanswered.

[Vaibhav Kulkarni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written.

At times becomes unconvincing.

[Vishal V.S. Minhas · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one's a typical potboiler.. Lots of loose ends though...It starts off pretty well but becomes a drag midway through...