Let Bhutto Eat Grass: Conclusion

by Shaunak Agarkhedkar

Events that began in 1974 hurtle towards a thrilling conclusion.

After a decade of sabotage against Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme and the spy network stealing technology, Arun Sablok & Jagjit Arora find themselves at a crossroads.

Tasked with executing R&AW's last gambit against the enemy, they must stop the unravelling of carefully laid plans.

But the inexorable march of time propels events, raising the spectre of nuclear war. Buffeted by unseen forces — foreign & domestic — the duo scrambles to extract a monstrous price.

506 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 24, 2022

About the author

Author of Let Bhutto Eat Grass; fountain pen addict; loves writing on paper; currently fixated on turquoise blue ink.

Reviews

[Rajesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most polished of the four books in the series. But that's like every iPhone release claims to be the best iPhone ever. A superb end to a fantastic series. This finale is edge of the seat stuff building up to a crescendo in the last 20% of the book.
All our now familiar characters like Mhatre, Nissa, Sablok, Mishra, Arora and Saxena contribute to this book which spans from New Delhi to London, Israel, USA and of course Pakistan and Afghanistan.
If you've read the first three books, waste no time getting to this one. If you haven't read any, start with Book 1 ASAP as the first course of a four-course literary meal.

[Srijan Chattopadhyay · Rating 4 out of 5]

No unpalatable surprises. Being in rhythm with its previous triad the fourth one brings the curtain down and smartly paints a fictionalized realistic slice of the nuclear-fuelled kerfuffle that was the Asian Eighties.

A whiskey-charged conversation between a "wing" high flier and his subordinate in the middle of the novel oozed the " Le Carre" esque futility of this trigger-happy game.

The ending though marred the mounting exhilaration in me a little bit as it tried too hard to create that last sweet aftertaste by putting a dollop of sugary fairytale.

Happy reading.

[Parikshit Tank · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the entire series. The last book is a page turner!

[Ashutosh Dikshit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let no one fool you, espionage isn’t only about thrilling rooftop, building and train chase sequences in glitzy cities. It is largely about the patient cultivation of assets in dusty corners of the world, the oft interminable wait for nuggets of information, the paranoia of false intel, so on and so forth. Through this four-part series, Mr. Agarkhedkar has truly managed to craft a riveting decade-long tale of spycraft, both within India’s steel frame, and on the edges of civilisation. The likes of Almeida saab, Sablok, Arora, Mhatre, Nissa, Saxena and Mishra are no one’s idea of Bond, but it is these everyman-type heroes who are central to any nation’s game of deception, vital for its internal and external security. I hope that this fantastic book series brings its characters to the screen one day.

[Kanan Saurabh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book and the entire series is a keeper. I have enjoyed reading them all and this one is a worthy conclusion.
The names did tend to get a little jumbled once in a while and a who's who of the characters would be excellent. The author's detailed knowledge of this topic (both geography and history) and the taut story construction puts him at par with the best (looking at you Le Carre').
I would strongly recommend that the author writes more of this goodness.

[Ajitabh Pandey · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an end to an exciting spy thriller series. Brutal spy games. Perhaps there is some truth to it, but most of it is fiction.