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4.0 out of 5 stars
Delectable Detection, November 21, 2000
This review is from: A Very Insipid Passion (Paperback)
This is a highly original study of four detectives, each a different type and all working on the same case. Two are professionals, Chief Inspector Halley Willard, a veteran officer of some renown, and Dobbelia Smith, an earthy, outspoken woman who, in this case, does most of the leg work for him. The narrator of the story (Detective Number Three) is Dr. Martin who, while he maintains a private practice, is also consulted by the city in the role of Forensic Psychiatrist. Fourth of this detectival quartet is "Sandy" Bloorweise, a patient of Dr. martin's. Dr. Bloorweise (who has not practiced medicine sine he came to the United States from England several years ago) has a clouded history which may or may not include murder. He also has an obsession with the novels of Agatha Christie.
The case which brings them all together involves the murder of a young man named Anton Alva. Dobbelia is assigned to the case at first, although later the investigation will be taken over by Inspector Halley. Dr. Bloorwoise, intrigued by the problem and seeing in it an opportunity to play the Great Detective in real life, urges Dr. Martin to find out all the details he can about the matter. The quartet meets several times to bounce ideas off one another, giving the reader an opportunity to compare their styles, personalities and approaches to the puzzle.
The real strength of the book is in its contrasting detectives: Inspector Halley, with a room in his apartment dedicated to his late wife; Dr. Martin, an inveterate skirt-chaser; Dobbelia, a single mother with a worrisome child; and Dr. Bloorwoise, plagued with guilt feelings whose origins we will not understand until the end of the book: Does he feel guilty because he committed a murder or is it because, although innocent, he tacitly accepted "credit" for the murder of a woman who was widely hated in the little Agatha Christie village in which he once lived. If the denoument of the main story seems outrageous, the denoument of Dr. Bloorwoise's story is quite satisfying.
Four detectives. Three with egg on their faces and one with an enigmatic smile.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
SOME COMMENTS ON R.N. MITRA'S NOVEL " A VERY INSIPID PASSION, February 2, 2002
This review is from: A Very Insipid Passion (Paperback)
A novel is an attempt to experience life through the imagination of an artist. A common man experiences life more or less as disjointed concatenation of events, bereft of a scheme, meaning, purpose, color, and substance. It is the imagination of an artist which imparts pain and passion, humor and emptiness, moral sheen and absurdity to life.
John Gardener said,"A novel is a vivid and continuous dream." It is a stretching of a myth in myriad dirctions, a search for
the meaning of life forever eluding the grasp of the novelist, yet scintillating enough of a challenge to forever engage him in its pursuit.
A detective novel is a literary genre of a particular kind. A narrowed, specialized novel, which serves its followers with the release of ardenaline through their spines with a whodunit and saturates their senses with entertainment and euphoria of action. Though its convas is limited, it can still be a work of art. It is through the lens of this possibility we will judge Dr. Mitra's work.
"A Very Insipid Passion" starts with the mystery of Dr. Bloorwoise's past. What has he done to be depressed? While we are fathoming an answer to this question, we are thrown into the main mystery of the book, the death of Anton Alva. On the face of it, the death of a young man should not ruffle a hair on the head of a New yorker, where murders form a constant backdrop of a glittering but dehumanized life.
Even with the glitter of a woman committing the murder in the story, it would not make too many heads turn toward it in real life. But the author, who is very conscious of having to deliver the prizes of a detective novel, makes the mystery tangible by adding a number of human relationships and twists of the situations in the murder tangle, to make it interesting and entertaining.All this savvy plotting and delicious writing gets suddenly choked and turns to a mystery-composed-by-a-menu when Dabnor champion, the dashing, charismatic millionaire is dragged into the plot.After the ambitious push of Dabnor in the Anton murder, the work loses its sophisticated charm and artistic demeanor.Dabnor Champion becomes the hero of small thrillers, with enough psychological contours and virile panache of a modern successful man to become heroic, in spite of his evil soul. Dr. Mitra has tried to put the best of macabre psychology and sick smartness of a modern man to entertain the reader.
The concomitant work of four detectives-Halley Willard, Sandy Bloorwoise, Dobbellia Smith, and Dr. Martin-to solve the Anton case is most interesting and intriguing. It is to the writer's credit that he creates a many-sided puzzle to keep the reader alert and entertained.
Throught the book the narrative is polished, light, well-paced, and witty-a fabric studded with brilliant nuggets, working in staccto to embellish the whole. Most of the book is in dialogs, which are credible and give it pace and human touch.
Charecterizations of Dobbellia Smith, Sandy Bloorwoise, and Halley Willard are excellent work, but at times smothered by overwork. Dr. Martin is the most obscure of the characters. The most ersatz people are Gregorina and Eve Ryder-both women. (Dr. Mitra seems to have done more for the single-malt whisky than any concerted effort by its trade-group to promote the product.)
Overall, the work is a finely wrought iron sculpture, with main strong and graceful trunk, its sinewy spiralling branches. Some structures are overdone, some details are manipulative. It comes across as a wholesome first-work of a talented writer, who is cut out to do higher level work than the present effort. Dr. Mitra should wield his brush on a wider convas, the novel-a detective novel under-tests his talents.
Read the book for its charm, entertainment, and fine prose.
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