" />Private">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29959882-private-delhi">Private Delhi by James">https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3780.James_Patterson">James Patterson
My rating: 2">https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2312889282">2 of 5 stars
Jacket blurb:
Santosh Wagh quit his job as head of Private India after harrowing events in Mumbai almost got him killed. But Jack Morgan, global head of the world’s finest investigation agency, needs him back. Jack is setting up a new office in Delhi, and Santosh is the only person he can trust.
Still battling his demons, Santosh accepts, and it’s not long before the agency takes on a case that could make or break them. Plastic barrels containing dissolved human remains have been found in the basement of a house in an upmarket area of South Delhi. But this isn’t just any house, this property belongs to the state government.
With the crime scene in lockdown and information suppressed by the authorities, delving too deep could make Santosh a target to be eliminated.
Read as an audio book.
Premise of the book is Jack Morgan agrees to help one hand of the government in New Delhi, against the advise of Santosh who feels Private should not get mixed up in politics. Jack disagrees, wanting to establish some high level contacts. Private becomes enmeshed in a bitter political feud involving organ trafficking and pedophiles, as a serial killer is methodically picking off high level .
This book gave me a bit of mental whiplash on several items:
•Setting is New Delhi, India, but there were times when a characters actions were pure American.
•The underground market for organ harvesting and transplanting felt at odds with Maya's essay for a more egalitarian healthcare system. The reader doesn't ever find out what exactly Maya's proposal is, only that it is Best Thing Ever.
•The Nisha/Maya sub-plot came across as incredibly sexist, that Nisha was not a good mother because she worked.
•Pedophile sub-plot was weird, and I think it's only purpose was to bring Maya and the Serial Killer to an intersection of sorts.
Where I enjoyed the first installment with Santosh, I felt his character was shuttled to the side to make room for a plethora of high level bureaucrats who spent the book ranting and raving about their opponents. If not ranting and raving about their opponent, they were mixed up in the organ trafficking and methodically being picked off. I felt Private was shunted off to the side to spend their time running around waving their arms over their heads.
I'm not a squeamish person, but I found the descriptions of the murders to be just...gross. Except for the one where the killer pulled the guys heart out, which made me snigger and think of Temple of Doom.
Ultimately, this was not my favorite Private installment. There were just too many characters, weird plot twists, implausible scenes, unnecessary gore, and incongruous Indian/American character that didn't mesh. I'll still read the next one in the series, because it is, after all, Private.
View">https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/892406-kristin">View all my reviews
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