Book Review : Keepers of the Kalachakra by Ashwin Sanghi

By Murtaza Kuwarawala -
Okay, so I won't say that I'm a die-hard fan of Ashwin Sanghi but he was one of those unique writers that could spin a story on conspiracy theories giving competition to Dan Brown. I absolutely loved his Chanakya's Chant and that made me get all his other books and this is my take on my first February read.

Blurb:

A seemingly random selection of heads of state are struck down like flies by unnamed killers who work with the clinical efficiency of butchers. Except that they leave no trace of their methods. Welcome back to the shadowy and addictive world of Ashwin Sanghi. After The Rozabal Line, Chanakya’s Chant, The Krishna Key and The Sialkot Saga, Ashwin Sanghi returns at last with another quietly fearsome tale—this time of men who guard the ‘Kalachakra’ or The Wheel of Time.

My Take on the Book:

First and foremost, what made me take so much time to write this review were the ratings on Amazon and Goodreads. I'll come upfront about it but the ratings on the website and my affinity towards the book were completely polarising. Halfway through the book, I was not sure whether I was reading a fiction, a research paper dumped without any clarity or a propaganda piece that we see quite often these days. Mr. Sanghi chose to adopt his old route of conspiracy theory after his last one, Sialkot Saga which kind of looked like a script of a typical Bollywood Movie.

This book just did not work for me for many more reasons. Primarily being, the characters were quite confusing to relate to and the repeated jumps in the timeline just added a bit more to the already existing dilemma. I literally had to skip almost 100 pages of the novel as the book became more of a dumping ground for all the research papers the author had. Also, some of the plot points were quite indigestible and the climax turned out to be quite vague.

Being a fan of Sanghi's earlier books (Chanakya's Chant and Krishna Keys), his latest offerings have been a huge disappointment from the perspective of both research and plot. My suggestion would be to avoid this book if you loved his earlier works so as to not ruin your memories of his better work.

My Rating: 🌟 out of 5 

Book in Three Words : Boring. Confusing. Avoidable.

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