Neha's Notebook

The Adventure of the Cardboard Box by Arthur Conan Doyle The Adventure of the Cardboard Box is a short story penned by Arthur Conan Doyle. It is written in a straightforward tone and most of the mystery unfolds during the time of its investigation. The plot of mystery in this story is mainly depicted in the narrative of thinking that Detective Sherlock Holmes presents when he encountered the clues. It is only the description of his thought process in which most of the mystery is shown to be solved in the story. The story goes something like this. A retired woman named Mrs. Susan Cushing, who lives in Croydon, receives a parcel containing a yellow cardboard box packed in brown paper. Inside the box are two raw ears freshly cut off from two human bodies, lying inside a mound of coarse salt. The parcel was sent from the city of Belfast, yet its owner remains uncovered by the authorities. The case goes under the investigation of Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard who...

The House of a Thousand Candles by Meredith Nicholson It is usually a dim daze and a call to adventure that makes a mystery exciting. The House of a Thousand Candles is a classic mystery thriller that has all the elements of a good, immersive mystery. The book was originally published in 1906 and has been made into movies twice since then. The story of the novel goes like this. A witty young man named Jack Glenarm has squandered all of his father’s money in his travels and wanderings. It is the month of October, when he receives a call through which he is informed that his grandfather had passed away in the month of June. A lawyer named Arthur Pickering calls Jack to read to him the will of his grandfather John Glenarm, who was a rich man. He tells Jack that his grandfather entrusted him with the will and he was a loyal friend of him. But Jack doesn’t seem to trust Pickering, who was also one of his schooltime friends. According to the will, young Glenarm will rec...

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn In the deepest recesses of our brain lurks a noodle-shaped city. Within this noodle city, scurry our thoughts, shuffling through the brain coils like frantic centipedes. It’s a dark place. Nobody knows what goes on inside there. Whether monsters lurch or angels dance, nobody can tell. We can only feel the distant vibrations of the whispers and echoes rising out of this dark place. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn takes us on a peregrination through this dark place with the cue of a story – the story of a husband and wife, both of them close to psychotic, in fact not close but totally psychotic. On the day of their fifth anniversary, the wife Amy disappears all of a sudden from their house and police is brought into picture. Upon several investigations, the clues, most of them, point towards Nick, the husband, as the suspect behind her disappearance. Blotches of blood that were wiped off by someone, were discovered in their kitchen, as well as ...

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie As the detective Hercule Poirot boards the Orient Express to go on a holiday, the train seems unusually full of passengers at this time of the year. Nevertheless, he gets a compartment with the help of his director friend Bouc. The train travels through its usual route, but halts to a stop as a snowdrift comes in its way. The dining-car that evening reveals passengers from different countries, cultures and classes. The diversity of its passengers includes an English lady, a Swedish lady, an elderly American woman, an American business tycoon with his secretary and valet, an Italian, an Indian Colonel, an English man, a Hungarian couple, a princess and her maid, among others. The following morning, a search reveals that the American tycoon named Ratchett is dead in his compartment. What surprises the doctor the most is the way the man was murdered. The man’s body possessed not one, not two but nearly twelve stabs, whi...

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie A creepy island. A spooky mansion. Ten strangers. A psychopath. A nursery rhyme. And then there were none… This, I think, perfectly describes the story of one of the best-selling novels by Agatha Christie.   According to the plot of the book, once there was an island named the ‘Indian Island’, located off the coast of Devon, England. The island was rumoured to be owned by an American millionaire named Mr. Owen. No one had really seen what went or happened on the island, but it was generally reported to be an isolated locale. On one early autumn, unexpected invitations reach ten strangers in ten different locations; all are invited as weekend guests on the island. Stifled by their respective mortal coils, they accept the invitations and head towards the island. In an eerie sea-facing mansion where they were invited, the ten characters meet - a judge with an obsession with justice, a schoolmistress, a soldier, a doctor...

Deception Point by Dan Brown Presidential elections were on the cards. There was a tension between the current US President and his opposition party candidate Senator Sexton. The main qualm between the two parties was regarding the space organization NASA. According to Senator Sexton, NASA was wasting billions of dollars of budget on space missions that were resulting in zero zippo zilch that is, in nothing at all. On the flip side, according to the current President Herney, the abolishment or privatization of NASA would result in powerful space secrets and talent going into the hands of private organizations who were driven by advertising. Senator Sexton brainwashed the public saying that the billions of dollars spent on NASA’s fruitless missions could be utilized on students’ education, corporations and jobs. Whereas, President Herney had no evidence to support his argument. It was evident that Senator Sexton would experience the win in the upcoming election and...

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown Human Mind is the Greatest Supercomputer! In the material nature, which is composed of five elements, anything and everything is a mortal entity. Never immortal. The elemental energy, as it moves through the dimension of time-space, it changes several forms along the way. And therefore, each form is but only a transitory and mortal entity. The duration for which a particular form lasts, may vary from one form to the other, but there is a certain truth about every material form. That is, at one point in time, it is going to disintegrate, collapse and dissolve into its breakdown. This fact about the world of material objects carries a 100% probability. Now, what about the world of non-material objects? Objects, such as, thoughts… Even these appearances we call as our ‘thoughts’ are nothing more than wavelets arising out of an ocean of gigantic memory – a memory which gets programmed in our human system, as we navigate a variety of exper...

Origin  by  Dan Brown Humans. What is the origin of human beings? Where do we come from? Where are we going? Did humans create God from the kaleidoscope of their imagination, or is there actually a God who is behind the origination of human beings, someone who consciously created humans? And if there is one, then, can this God, can this great intelligence survive the technology that human beings are progressing towards, as rapidly as the speed of light? A technology, which seems to have a penultimate power over a human’s life, and perhaps even over their death too… Through this novel, Mr. Brown, here drives a wedge between the ideas of creationism [or creation science], and spontaneous evolution that can be clearly explained using the concepts of science and technology. Did an entity create this universe, as suggested by all religions, or did the universe spontaneously created itself, triggered by one scientific process after the other? Do humans require to see somethin...

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson Every mystery has a beginning and an end. And every mystery leads to the end of some or the other search. While some mysteries lead to the hunt of a treasure or a secret, some others lead to an understanding or a realization, an insight or an observation. In the same vein, some mysteries lead to the unfolding and revelation of something which causes us to wonder and wish, that it’d have been better if the pandora’s box of this mystery would have remained locked shut forever…because to glare at the revealed discovery, is probably too astronomical an appearance to assimilate all at once. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larrson too is one of those mysteries that is as spine-chilling as intensely appaling. It is a heart-thumping jigsaw puzzle sketched from a labyrinthine storyline of several interlinked mysteries, revolving mainly around the lives of the characters Mikael Blomkvist (a journalist and part editor...

Password to Larkspur Lane by Carolyn Keene As much as the title of the book suggests, the novel reveals a mystery that unfolds like a gossamer trail of violet-pink larkspur flowers… It is said that if one wishes to attract butterflies and hummingbirds in a garden, one should plant oodles of larkspurs there. In this case however, the mystery walks over to Nancy encapsulated in a letter capsule being carried by a homing pigeon. The letter is a typewritten note containing a puzzling code-line: “Bluebells are singing horses”. The note leads Nancy and her crew to a hilltop house where live a granny and a grandpa, who report witnessing apparitional rings of blue fire outside their house, several times since the past few days. As more clues are gathered, the pieces of the puzzle begin taking a form. The crystal garden in the hilltop house, waiting to be robbed by a sanitorium’s doctor-gang who take elderly women as their patients, offering flimflam promises to restore their bea...

The Mystery of the Ivory Charm by Carolyn Keene Who could ever wonder that a tiny, cream-colored ivory elephant charm holds the power of life and death for humans? A charm of such a kind marks this novel of Nancy Drew-Carolyn Keene mystery series too...yes, read on. One of the most intriguing stories of the series, this storyscape features an ancient Indian charm designed like a white elephant and sculpted in ivory material. This one-of-a-kind charm belongs to the time of the great ‘White Elephant Cult’ of India. The charm belongs to an Indian boy named Rishi, who works in a wild animal circus show, the trainer of which is his father, a cruel man named Rai. Apart from being the animal trainer and circus master, Rai is depicted to be a man of ruthless personality. As Nancy comes face to face with this man, she spots this prettily-set ivory charm, designed brilliantly like a tiny elephant pendant, swinging from the black corded chain worn into Rai’s neck. The ...

The Clue of the Velvet Mask by Carolyn Keene Wherever Nancy goes, mystery follows her in the same way as moths are drawn to a flame… It all begins with a masquerade party that she is attending on the invitation of her friend Linda, who works as an employee in Lightner’s Entertainment Company, an event management company which organizes most of the important, influential and wealthy events of the area. In the storyline depicted by this novel, Nancy Drew discovers herself pedaling her mind’s sharpest wits to the metal, as a series of robberies seem to boondoggle the detective inside her. Robberies – which, apparently seem to be carried out by a weird yet utterly mischievous gang with their signature clue of an unusual black velvet mask. While Nancy is attending this party, she comes across one of these gang members, who is climbing a rose trellis to reach the party hall through the window. The culprit slips away in a jiffy, though Nancy is able to catch his mask, which, later tu...

The Whispering Statue by Carolyn Keene An elderly lady, Mrs. Merriam visits Nancy’s father to unearth the secret of her antique book collection, that she regularly sells to an antique librarian named Mr. Basswood. Apparently, Mr. Basswood seems to be flummoxing Mrs. Merriam by offering her lesser charges for the books she sold, than the charges he auctioned to his customers. The lady smells something fishy going on in his library-bookshop, and wants the secret behind this matter be unveiled. Nancy, along with her friends Bess and George, boards the flight to Waterford, where she is going to have a stay in Mrs. Merriam’s watch club motel. Disguising herself as a girl named Debbie, Nancy starts working in Basswood’s antique library as his assistant saleswoman. Guided by her instincts, she is led into a dusty chamber located inside the bookshop, where she discovers a smorgasbord of statues and sculptures, most of these signed in the initials M De K. Even Nancy is beg...

The Mystery at Lilac Inn by Carolyn Keene Of all the mysteries that Nancy has come across, this one causes her to land into ‘Lilac Inn’, a remotely-situated colonial-style resort. Abundant greens and dense sprinkles of lilac trees paint the portrait of this inn’s generous property. The picturesque space is revealed to be dotted with a number of elegant cottage huts, one dining hall and also, a public restaurant. Some itsy-bitsy renovations are in process. The inn is owned by Nancy’s friend Emily, who has purchased it very recently, and also, who is going to host her wedding cermony in the inn before opening its cottages for the tourists. Nancy and their common friend Helen, are going to be Emily’s bridesmaids. And so, the two of them, Nancy and Helen, pack up their suitcases to have a wondersome stay in the beautiful inn; totally unaware of what awaits them there! To everyone’s utter bewilderment, the inn seems to be shadowed by some bizarre occurrences. Also livi...