5 reviews for City Of Death
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City Of Death
by Abheek Barua
Description:
On a muggy monsoon afternoon Sohini Sen gets a call from the chief minister’s office. A young woman from a well-connected family in the city has been found brutally murdered. Sen is brought back from a bureaucratic wasteland to the thick of the action.
An intelligent and intuitive investigator who struggles with addiction and depression, Sen is ill-prepared for an investigation that is a political minefield with TV anchors and tabloids baying for blood. As various interested parties, armed with power and money, try to manipulate the murder enquiry. Sen is forced to question the very possibility of justice.
A moody atmospheric novel that is as much about the Indian city and the dark depth of the human mind as it is about crime and investigation, City of Death marks the debut of a brilliant new voice.
About The Author
Abheek Barua has been in the financial sector for twenty-four years and is currently the Chief Economist of HDFC Bank. Having written on the issues in the dry world of economics and finance for over a decade, he was curious to know if his skills would work in fiction. City of Death is his first novel.
Skryf Review
“Excellent Reading”
Pooja
City of Death is possibly the greatest Doctor Who episode ever made. These things are subjective, of course, and in a 2009 readers’ poll of the 200 complete stories in existence at the time, it came eighth. But ahead of it were stories with very solid pretentions to genuine, serious sci-fi or literary merit, stories such as The Caves of Androzani, Blink and Human Nature. I’d definitely recommend this as a must-read for any Doctor Who enthusiast, and of course there are coy little bonus references for the attentive fan (for instance, the Doctor at one points wonders whether he will ever end up confused by the number of his wives). Whether or not it would make sense or mean much to anyone else, particularly someone who has never watched the original, I have absolutely no idea. Great fun for the initiated, at any rate.
arif
This was thoroughly delightful. City of death is one of my favourite adventures and James Goss made an extra wonderful version of this. His descriptions of Romana, and the Doctor’s impressions of Romana, were brilliant! There was wonderful additional character background. (Including the BEST explanation for a cameo ever!) The extended scene with Romana and Duggan in the cafe was magical. I very highly recommend this to other Tom Baker Doctor Who fans. And will have to get the audio version with Lalla Ward reading this. I think that will be spectacular too!
Angaan
the sixteenth season of the classic version of Doctor Who isn’t one that could be seen as a vintage due to various production issues. However, there was one diamond in the rough in the form of the second story of this season, “City Of Death” – the first story in the programme’s history to be filmed outside of Britain’s shores.The book also manages to balance the threat against the Doctor and Romana along with their “companion”, the art detective Duggan, whilst ensuring the wit of the story is maintained.Due to the wider scope afforded to James Goss, he manages to use the opportunity to add in plot points from the original version of the screenplay such as the Doctor playing croquet with William Shakespeare at the start of the story and build upon off-screen moments such as Romana and Duggan going for a night out around Paris which ends with Romana getting her first experience of a hangover. For those who know the story from the interview on the DVD release for “City Of Death”, there is also a sly cameo by Douglas Adams and “Destiny Of The Daleks” director Ken Grieve.
Ira
City of Death is a particularly beloved episode of Doctor Who for me, as anyone I’ve ever watched a heist movie with could probably tell. “Of course the best fictional use of the Mona Lisa Variant,” I have said to many a friend, beginning a conversation no one wants to have. So I was primed to like this book, and I do. Goss does his best to channel Douglas Adams, who wrote the episode, when giving extra details about Paris, and he manages to be dryly humorous without drifting into nonsense. He also gets Romana right, which is important. As the only Time Lady to accompany the Doctor other than his granddaughter, Romana deserves far more attention than she gets. I think this novel stands alone well enough that people only vaguely familiar with the series would enjoy it. The episode certainly does. If you are not familiar: there’s a blue box and an alien named The Doctor uses it to travel through time and space. Go watch the episode, and, if you like, read this book. It’s a fun story.