Crisp, atmospheric triple murder mystery has quirky characters

Tune for the Dead is written by Debashish Irengbam and Anshul Vijayvargiya. When I read their bios I came to know that Debashish Irengbam is a scriptwriter and Anshul Vijayvargiya is his co-writer. Together the two have worked on crime shows like CID, Adalaat, Savdhaan India, Gumrah, Webbed and Agent Raghav. The book features an oddball, slightly eccentric private detective Dhruv, living in the sleepy town of Manali, spending his time in alcoholic stupor, driving a scooter that is so rickety and ancient, that not just one prayer, but a constant stream of prayers will ensure the rider’s safety.

The prologue starts with a heavy rain pattering down a tin roof, a man named Raina Awasthi sitting in his cozy wood-panelled office of his travel agency, gets a phone call, an envelope with a CD with cryptic symbols on the front cover is delivered to his office. Taking the CD, Awasthi drives away in his car, with the CD playing on his car audio system. Within a few minutes, Awasthi commits suicide by driving over the cliff.

While Dhruv is drinking in a resto-bar, a prospective client, Misha, approaches him. She is the daughter of the first victim Raina Awasthi. Misha refuses to believe that her father had committed suicide. She hires Dhruv to investigate the case. While inspecting the scene of the car crash, Dhruv retrieves the CD with strange symbols from Awasthi’s car. The moment Dhruv takes up the case, he is attacked in his house by masked men warning from him continuing the investigation.

A trail of clues leads Dhruv’s investigation from Manali to China. Even before he lands in China, he comes to know that the second victim Shekhar Rao has committed suicide by shooting himself. With a little bit of ingenuity and snooping in Shekhar Rao’s house, Dhruv finds out that just before Shekhar Rao had shot himself, he was listening to an eerie piano symphony. In China, Dhruv and Misha (who has followed him there) are stalked everywhere they go. Whoever their enemy is, they are always close behind, more often than not a step ahead, putting Dhruv and Misha’s lives in danger, constantly trying to kill them.

From China following a new set of clues, Dhruv and Misha head to Kolkata. Sadly, they are just in time to see the third victim’s suicide. One thing connects the three victims, moments before they decide to end their lives, all three were listening to an eerie piano symphony with the strange symbols on the cover. Dhruv who turns out to be quite intelligent, soon realises that he and Misha aren't just dealing with suicides, there is a conspiracy behind each of these three suicides.

Tune for the Dead has a very interesting premise, though the chill factor could have been heightened more. I personally feel that a thriller should ideally keep you on the edge of the seat, biting your fingernails in fear and anticipation, but that isn’t the case here, except for some scenes. Or maybe it’s because you start trusting Detective Dhruv, expecting him to surmount all obstacles and outsmart his enemies.

But I must mention one thing, the protagonist Dhruv though weird, prone to eccentricities (one of the first few scenes shows him picking up a cockroach with a single antenna, from the bar he frequents, taking it home to keep as a pet, feeding it), at times foolhardy (can’t explain that without giving away a suspense), whatever his faults, Dhruv just makes a reader warm up towards him. Unknowingly you start flipping the pages to see what happens to Dhruv. In short you start rooting for him. I liked the way Dhruv's backstory was interspersed in the narrative.

The writing is crisp, the pace steady, the suspense decent, but it’s the character of Dhruv who ensures that the reader doesn’t put down the book. In one of the scenes, the way Dhruv handles the villains just took my breath away. I just wish there were more such scenes, than the book would have been outstanding. Nevertheless, Detective Dhruv is one remarkable fellow who the readers will love and follow till the end, like I did. I also get a feeling that Detective Dhruv will soon find himself in a web series. Read the book for Dhruv, he kind of grows on you.

Rachna Chhabria is a Bengaluru based children’s author and a freelance writer. Her latest book is Festival Stories Through The Year (HarperCollins, 2018).