Some three weeks back, I received Westland Books's newsletter called "Tranquebar Times" where I first saw and read the description of this book "The Edge Of Machete". The cover as you can see features a masked terrorist which intrigued me and then the description told me that its a thriller. Thats when I decided I am going to read this one for sure. Then while surfing internet for the same book, I got to know the Abhisar Sharma, the author of the book is actually writing a trilogy named "The Taliban Conundrum" and this is the book two of that trilogy. I checked flipkart for the same and ordered "The Eye Of The Predator" straight away and started reading it and absolutely loved it. I am going to review it later sometime on this blog. Then came in "The Eye Of The Predator" for review and here I am. Finished reading this book this morning itself.
"The Edge Of The Machete" is an absolute page turner. Definitely one of the best thrillers I have read so far from an Indian writer. The book opens up with a brutal murder of Jason Wilson, a CIA agent who was on a secret undercover mission. Aamir Sherzai, Tehreek-e-Taliban's new kid on the block killed him brutally and got the entire process shot. CIA people get to see the video and they freak out and a series of planning, execution, murders, lies, under cover missions begin. Jason's best friend, Ed promises himself and other people at CIA that he is going to kill Aamir and take the revenge of his best friend's death. The book will keep you hooked till the end and would tempt you to read the last few pages to figure out what exactly is going to happen in the end. The same was the case with Abhisar's first book "The Eye Of The Predator".
The book is extremely well written, characters are well defined and the way Afghans and Pakistani's love for bollywood has been shown had me in splits. The story of each of the central characters has been told properly and in an interesting way. Abhisar hasn't left a untied thread, if there is a new subplot opening up in the book, he had made sure that it doesn't get lost in this 332 page book. Also, I would advice you to understand the current geography of Afghanistan & Pakistan, because this will help you understand the places mentioned in the book.
The only problem with the book that I'd faced is its font size. It should have been a bit bigger, would have been easier to read. I might look stupid here, but this is an honest feedback. Rest everything is just near to perfect about this book.
Pick this book up if you are into fast-paced thrillers and I would also suggest you to read the first book of the trilogy, its not that these books are inter-related but they were so well written that you would definitely enjoy reading them. At least I enjoyed myself.
Book Source : Westland Books
Review asked by Westland Books.
ISBN : 978-93-81626-67-2
Genre : Thriller, Fiction
It's like Khaled Hosseini meeting David Baldacci, isn't it? :D
ReplyDeleteSounds like that! And I know the thing with font, you suddenly feel like you wouldn't be able to continue if the size is too small. :/
Good review! :D
Thanks MSM! Yeah, publishers should keep in mind that everyone is not comfortable with small font size. I have told this to Westland books and the author himself. :)
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