The Edge of the Machete - Book Review

This is part of the Blog Adda Book Reviews Programme.

Title - The Edge of the Machete (paperback)
Author - Abhisar Sharma
Publisher - Westland
Genre - Journalistic Fiction / Terrorism Thriller
Number of Pages - 333
Font - 9/12 pts Linden Hill - 333 pages
Cover Image - A masked terrorist
Price - INR 250

Author Profile - Abhisar Sharma is a renowned journalist in India with about twenty years of experience in covering topics of national and international interest. This is his second book in the trilogy of Afghan novels. His first book being 'The Eye of the Leopard'.

There are three primary characters:
Ed alias Sarfaraz - a CIA agent.
Shaun Marsh alias Shahid - a white British Muslim.
Rahul Sharma - a leading Indian journalist.

The book traces the adventures of a CIA specialist Ed who is heading to Afghanistan to avenge the execution of his closest buddy Jason. (People note the reference to the most famous agent in international fiction Jason Bourne). Ed stages a killing of CIA agents and makes an escape assuming the identity of Sarfaraz and hosts a clip of the killing with his face visible to become the darling of the jihadi world. This trick works and he infiltrates the core group in the Khyber.

Shaun a son of a British cab-driver and a Kashmiri woman is in a state of emotional conflict coming to terms with his mixed identity. He decides to embrace Islam and ends up in Belmarsh prison after a scuffle. Here is brutally raped by white supremacists; but he avenges this insult by biting a portion of the penis of the leader of the white supremacists. This makes him a hero among the Muslims in prison and he decides to reach Pakistan to trace his roots and find the purpose of his life. Inevitably he ends up in Afghanistan after a miraculous escape from police captivity in Pakistan. The escape scene is done well.

Rahul is a high-flying journalist who lands up in Kabul to interview a terrorist leader. He is kidnapped and held captive for ransom by a fringe group; then in turn he is kidnapped by a larger group.

Amanda / Meera - Amanda was in love with Shaun but they split because Shaun would not give up on his suicidal Islamic quest; Amanda comes to India heart-broken meets Rahul in a spiritual camp in Haridwar. they fall in love and get married. Amanda changes her name to Meera and she continues to work for Amnesty International.

The Beast:
This is a massive complex of caves and caverns in the Khyber where all factions of terror outfits from the Laskar-e-toiba, the hizbul mujahideen and a bunch of other names meet and plan a massive attack. The most daring of all 'a dirty bomb' attack - a nuclear weapon attack on the USA.

The novel traces the intertwined tale of Shahid, Sarfaraz, Rahul and Amanda. Do they manage to fulfill their promises? Does Ed / Sarfaraz avenge Jason's execution? Is Shahid forced to execute Rahul? What happens to Amanda?

Read the novel to find answers to all your questions!

My judgement - The story is a cross between - Frederick Forsyth's - The Afghan and Mani Ratnam's fim Roja!The font-size was a bit too small for my liking! The book could have been racier; a poorly written sex scene involving Jason and a Pakistani lady, some inadvertently comical torture scenes and uneven-pacing are the negatives in the book.

Positives - In-depth research of Pak-Afghan-ISI-terror nexus, awesome description of 'The Beast'; emotional turmoil of characters well brought out!

My rating - 3 stars out of 5!

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com . Participate now to get free books!

A Tag Post - Completed

I was tagged by vandana!

So, the rules of the game are :

1. Each person tagged must post 11 things about themselves.
2. They must also answer the 11 questions the ‘tagger’ has set for them.
3. They must create 11 more questions to ask bloggers they have decided to tag.
4. They must then choose 11 bloggers and tag them in their post.
5. These lucky bloggers must then be told.
6. There are no tag backs.

My answers:

1.I am a POET and a die-hard romantic!

2.Curd-rice and aloo-masala fanatic!

3.Worship Illayaraja, The Beatles, RD Burman, Kishore Kumar and Mohammed Rafi.

4.Am a self-taught kick-boxer; interested in mixed-martial arts.

5.Hate men who abuse women physically and verbally; have bashed up a few guys to drive sense into their heads.

6.Hate two-faced people - I can't decide which side of their face to slap first!

7.Love cooking, but for the life of me am not able to roll out a perfect chappati !

8.Dog-lover!

9.Hope to become a movie-maker some day!

10.I believe that ‘Love never fails’ - the people whom we may choose to love may fail us but the purity of Love can never ever fail!

11.Have toyed a lot with the idea of becoming a masked vigilante and clean up the criminal elements that abound the world-over! Alternatively, a career as an assassin!

Answers to Vandana's list of questions:

What is your favourite post in your blog and why?
http://vincimax.blogspot.in/2012/05/if-onlyyou-would-say-yes.html

Am still waiting for a ‘yes’!

What is your favourite song/movie?
Song - Chehra hai ya chaand khila hai from Saagar! Film - It’s a Wonderful Life!

What’s the reason why you love blogging?
I get to share my thoughts with the world!

Suggest me a good book or movie!
Book - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Film - It’s a Wonderful Life


What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever come across in your life?
The thinnest folks are the ones who eat the most!

What’s the one thing that you regret doing?
Not chasing my dream!

Who is your inspiration?
Charlie Chaplin!

Your secret ambition?
If I told you would it remain a secret - a career as an assassin

Tell us a new fact or info which others don’t know much about.
That I want to be an assassin :)!

Create your own question and give an answer to it.
Most annoying celebrity?
Paris Hilton, Karan Johar and Arnab (timesnow)

Favourite historical figure?
Tipu Sultan!

Eleven new questions!

Your pet-name / nick-name
Your celebrity crush
Your favourite book
Who was your favourite teacher
Which dish can you cook best
Your idea of a dream-date
Should cricket be banned in India
Rajni or Kamal
The one possession that you would like to save if your house were on fire!
Love marriage ya arranged marriage!
If you had the power to give one tight slap to three people - who would they be!

The following people are tagged:

Susan Deborah

Sahi Sridhar

Sowmya Swaminathan

Ganga Bharani

Jaishree

Kalyan

Ashwini

Karpagam

Karen

Nabanita

Sowmya Sarag

“Journeys Never End” - My entry for the Get Published Contest

The Idea
This tale has its origins in a moving tale that was narrated to me when I undertook a trip to Rameshwaram a few years back. I have retained the names of the characters as narrated to me by the story-teller. It is a love-story of a Tam-Brahm senior architect and a Bengali trainee architect.

What Makes This Story ‘Real’
I cannot verify or ascertain if the tale is 100 percent true; but I had this story narrated to me on a long train journey and I feel that anyone who has ever been in love will find something special in this story.

Extract:
It was 9:35 PM and my train to Rameshwaram was scheduled to leave Egmore station at 9:40 PM. The Tambaram-Chennai Beach local train reached Egmore just in time for me to run like Usain Bolt and get into the Rameshwaram Express.

I tried to catch my breath as I settled into my seat L-21. I looked at my fellow-passengers; a middle-aged couple eating their dinner, two nuns praying and a man in his thirties; with a copper urn in his hands.

Train to Rameshwaram and a copper urn - probably his parents' ashes I surmised. How wrong was I? I would learn what true love meant in the next fourteen hours of my journey to Rameshwaram - a story of love that overcame all odds!

A parting thought:
Does true love transcend boundaries of space and time? Can someone grieve the loss of a loved one - forever? Is not this life too precious to be just just grieving on and on; instead of moving on with one’s life and duties?

Endnote:
This is my entry for the HarperCollins–IndiBlogger Get Published contest, which is run with inputs from Yashodhara Lal and HarperCollins India.

Moonrise Kingdom - Movie Review

Can a movie be described as delicious?

Well I found ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ by Wes Anderson to be simply delicious. It is a quaint little tale with a stellar star cast - Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Frances Mc Dormand, Bill Murray and a bunch of lovable kids.

Set in the 1960s - The story is based in a scout camp managed by Edward Norton and starts with the disappearance of a scout Sam. In the town where the camp is set a girl Suzy goes missing as well. Bruce Willis is the town cop who starts a kid-hunt for both the missing kids.

Sam and Suzy are twelve year old kids who have fallen in love and have run away. Sam is orphaned after the death of his parents while Suzy is living in a dysfunctional family of a lawyer couple - Murray and Frances. Frances has an on and off affair with Bruce, which does not help matters either.

The story is how Sam and Suzy are found, separated and then reunited again!

I am not going to reveal anything further except that this is a must-watch movie for everyone. Intelligent scripting, lovely music, top-notch cinematography and sound-recording and flawless performances from even the most minor actor.

Do not miss this movie it’s one of those rare movies that puts a smile on your face and shows the perspective of love from an adolescent’s point of view.

Skyfall - The Reboot's Done!

With Quantum of Solace bringing down the chips on 007 - MGM's huge financial mess, buy-back and take-over issue and a hundred other problems one kept wondering if Bond-23 would ever see the light of day.

The wait was worth it - in Skyfall Daniel Craig is back in form as 007 chasing a group which is in possession of a disk-drive which has the identities of secret-agents embedded in terrorist organiations all over the world.

An adrenaline-rush inducing start sequence in Istanbul funnly similar to an animated Tintin on his motorbike earlier this year and a fight atop a train and a shot - that plunges 007 down into a river in Jason Bourne style.

007 is presumed dead, MI-6 is rocked by bomb-explosions and agents are killed. M played by Judi Dench is called for an enquiry and we have Ralph Fiennes making in an entry as the next head of MI-6.

The bomb-attack brings 007 back to London - a bitter man waiting to find justice and to know why he was shot - "If you had trusted me I would have had the disk-drive for you".

After a new Q - who looks suspiciously like Rajendra Kumar's son Kumar Gaurav - training and reassesmment of fitness - 007 is back in the hunt landing in Shanghai attempting to discover the mastermind behind the attacks.

The trail thickens as an assassin falls to his death - a gambling chip takes 007 to Macau where more intriguing stuff happens as we meet a seductive lady who loks like a cross between Sophie Marceau and Lucy Liu.

Finally we are introduced to the villain - an ex MI-6 operative Silva - played with aplomb by Javier Bardem. The parallels with Heath Ledger in 'The Dark Knight' do not do justice to Bardem's portrayal.

There is a moment when we almost expect Silva to grab 007 and kiss him but the moment is diffused when 007 states nonchalantly - 'What makes you think it's my first time?'

Silva expertly gets arrested - hacks into the MI-6 system creates chaos as he escapes from his high-security cell and sets up an explosion and crash in the London Metro.

All this to avenge the injustice meted out by M and the 'spy-masters' on him - when he was betrayed many years ago and left to his Chinese captors.

007 foils the plan and then starts the final chapter.

007 taking M to safety in the classic silver Aston Martin and driving to Bond's family-abode - Skyfall in Scotland. Here we meet the caretaker Albert Finney who steals the show with a classic line - "Son I was ready even before you were born".

The three wait with limited ammunition, innovate and come up with traps and wait for Silva and his goons to land. Shoot-outs and explosions and a final climax in the chapel as Silva, M and 007 come to terms with their inner demons.

Watch the movie for Sam Mendes does a reboot in style - ticks all the right boxes, fights, Bond-babes, intrigue, stunning music and cinematography and Adele's lovely rendition, crackling humour. There's even a quotation from a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Watch the movie to witness a Bond who is the truest to what Ian Fleming envisaged in his novels.

My only grouse - a villain of Silva's stature deserves a better death!

Three and a half stars!