Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Murder In The Ashram by Kathleen McCaul

"But for now it would wait till tomorrow's funeral. We'd bury Stephen in peace, without a father, the way he was born."
~~~~Page 185

Title: Murder in the Ashram
Author: Kathleen McCaul
ISBN: 9780749953638
Publisher: Piatkus/2011
Pages: 320

Stephen Newby's body is found in River Yamuna. His best friend and flatmate, Ruby Jones cannot understand the reasons. She goes sleuthing on her own to find out. As the title suggest, it is supposed to be murder mystery, which should keep the reader in tenterhooks. But no such thing happens. Ruby Jones, who aspires to be an international news journalist, is not interesting enough. Her musings do not do anything for the suspense element which should have been there. 

As ashrams go, this shows the dark side of a well known one. Stephen and Ruby were regulars there, both in love with a wannabe Guru, Rani.  Stephen was in search for his unknown father. The reader can make out, who is his father right from the beginning. 

I live in Delhi, and the geographical descriptions left much to be desired. There are major discrepancies. Wazirabad bridge is no where near Dakshinpuri. Mckaul did not do much research in that arena. This fact alone made me want to shout!!

One can read it as a travelogue if one is so interested, but I say don't waste your time. I am not going to pick any other book by this author. EVER. Unless you pay me million dollars!

11 comments:

gautami tripathy said...

To My Name is God, who has been spamming my posts, I say grow up! Or better still, get a life...!!

BLHmistress said...

Aw that is a sad teaser. Thanks for sharing.

My TT

Margaret @ BooksPlease said...

Thanks for this - I'm taking your advice and I shan't bother even looking at this book. It's so annoying when you know a place to read such a bad description of it and the mystery element sounds non-existent.

Unknown said...

Sad teaser.

CarolynBrown-Books

Anonymous said...

Yes, a sad teaser!

http://tributebooksmama.blogspot.com/2012/06/teaser-tuesday_26.html

Pam (@iwriteinbooks) said...

Aw this sounds like a sad one. :O/

Cathy De Los Santos said...

It's a sad teaser and so sorry you didn't like the book. Hopefully the next one you like will be better. It's bad when authors don't do their research if they are not using a fictional place.

Irene said...

I'm sorry this was not a book you enjoyed, it's annoying when the author doesn't do their research well. Thank you for your review.

Harvee said...

That's terrible when authors don't do their research before writing, especially in travel details.

Vanessa said...

Too bad the details don't match up. Research is key! Thought I suppose I probably wouldn't have known the difference, myself.

I hope you'll stop by and check out my teaser.

Yvonne said...

I'm sorry you didn't like this book. Sad teaser.