Book Review: The Adventure of the Cardboard Box by Arthur Conan Doyle

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 suspects three medical students for sending this parcel to the woman, to carry out a mischief. He suspects them because these three medical students once lived as tenants in the woman’s house and were thrown out by her because of their spoiled behaviorr.
Lestrade seeks the help of Detective Sherlock Holmes, who visits the woman’s house along with his friend Watson, who is also the narrator of the story. Holmes, who is a crackerjack at solving mysteries, walks to the woman’s backyard to witness and inspect the cardboard box himself. Having examined the box and its contents, Holmes suspects that it is evidence of a serious crime, and not merely some prank or mischief. As per his thinking, there are many reasons for this. First and foremost, if the medical students had hacked the ears off some dead body in their laboratory, the ears would have been dipped in preservative fluids, and not merely covered in salt. Second, the handwriting scribbled on the package appeared to belong to someone who was not very educated and was largely unfamiliar with the locations of Croydon. He thought this when he noticed a spelling mistake in the spelling of Croydon, which was corrected and covered up by hastily writing over it with the pen.

Upon putting back the package where it was kept, Holmes began asking a series of questions from Mrs. Cushing, while also scrupulously observing the surroundings of her living room. His observations revealed that Susan has two sisters named Mary and Sarah. Mary is married to a man named Jim Browner who is a sailor.

Holmes quickly dispatches a telegram to an acquaintance of him in Liverpool where the Browners are known to be residing. Post this, he visits Sarah’s house, and comes to know that she will not be able to meet them, as she has “brain fever.” Soon enough, he receives a response to his telegram which informs him that the Browners have not been present at their residence for the past two or three days. His analysis, that the parcel’s receiver was originally intended to be Sarah Cushing and not Susan Cushing, is proved to be true.
Later on, as they catch Jim Browner, he confesses his crime and blurts out the entire story. He was the one who had sent the parcel to Susan’s house, thinking that Sarah was living with Susan as she used to do in the earlier days. The name “S. Cushing” written on the parcel had sparked confusion whether it was for Susan or Sarah. It was for Sarah. The two freshly-cut ears contained in the parcel belonged to Jim’s wife Mary and a man who was Mary’s lover. He had sent these to Sarah as a form of revenge. He believed that it was Sarah who had poisoned his wife’s mind against him and introduced her to this man. This was all because Jim, had once rejected Sarah’s love.
While Jim appears to be wracked with guilt as he confesses the entire story, Holmes starts to ponder on the nature of life, the circle of misery. Whose fault it was actually? Jim committed the crime enraged with a sense of passion that arises from experiencing betrayal in love. At the same time, a crime indeed was committed, that cannot be denied. So, whose fault it was, Sarah’s who interfered in their happy relationship, the other man who indulged in an affair with his wife, his wife Mary or him? In the end, the truth remains unanswerable.

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Book Review: The House of a Thousand Candles by Meredith Nicholson

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 receive his inheritance, but there are some tough stipulations attached to it. The main condition is that Jack has to stay in his grandfather’s mansion for an year without travelling away from that area during this time. The other condition is that he is forbidden to marry a young woman named Marian, who lives there. If during the term of this year, he marries this woman, then the entire inheritance will go to a Christian girls school named St. Agatha’s in the village.
His grandpa’s house is a secluded mansion located in rural Indiana, a setting around which the major portion of the novel is set. Jack, who is already short of money, decides to move ahead for his stay in this mansion, thinking that it would be a no big deal. So, Jack proceeds toward the mansion. Upon reaching there, he is welcomed by the housekeeper Bates, who was a loyal servant to his grandfather and who had transmitted the news of his death to Pickering.
Jack’s grandfather was an avid lover of all things architecture and design. He had specially gotten foreign artists and labourers to build this mansion, sculpting the intricate details and designwork. The moment he stepped inside the mansion, he already came across some of the finest architectural details crafted in the interiors as well as outdoors. Towering stone walls, luxurious palatial-style rooms, shimmering colossal crystal chandelier dangling from the high ceiling of the lobby, fireplace crackling with hickory wood logs, a majectic fireplace mantelpiece and a mammoth library full of bookshelves slinging with tons of books on subjects of architecture and design. But the most unusual thing he notices inside the mansion is candles. There are about hundreds and hundreds of candles illuminating the mansion from the inside. From tallow candles to expensive silver candlesticks, there are varied candle sconces tucked everywhere, from the walls to the tables. Bates tells him that his grandfather was highly passionate about collecting different types of candles and so he usually imported them from around the world.
Outside the mansion, Jack experiences sunset skies dripping with the festal colours of red, brown and gold. There is a small lake where some people are paddling in their canoes. As the moon mirrors itself in the glassy lake, Jack tours around the territory, walking through lush woodlands, countryside courtyards blooming with seasonal flowers with a view of a girls school bordering the other side of the lake. Everything is as tranquil as it could be, until, one night, Jack almost gets shot down by a bullet while he is sitting beside an open window reading a book.
From there on, the mansion, as serene and beautiful it appeared to him, turns into a haunted place brimming with creepy secrets. As time goes by, he learns of secret treasures buried in the mansion, he hears ghostlike figures walking behind the wall, he discovers an underground tunnel that leads to a chapel adjoining the school. How many unrevealed passageways are snaking inside this mansion, he wonders.
This mysterious enigma presented in the novel is further enhanced by a romantic subplot that is the cherry on the top. Jack, while taking his daily walks through the countryside, repeatedly comes across a school teacher named Marian who also plays music. He usually spots her wearing a skirt and a red tam o shanter, a type of women’s hat with a bobble attached to it. Gradually, he falls in love with her, forgetting that he is forbidden to marry her, in case he wants to receive his grandfather’s inheritance.
One day, as Marian leaves the village to go to Cincinnati, Jack finds himself tempted to take a train and follow her. And so, he ends up breaking one condition of his grandfather’s will. Pickering, who is already seeking to grab the mansion’s buried treasures, learns about Jack’s disappearance from the mansion. He uses this opportunity to tell Jack that he will now not receive a nugget of his grandfather’s inheritance. But soon enough, Jack’s friend Larry, who is a guest in the mansion, discovers The Door of Bewilderment hidden inside the secret underground tunnel of the mansion, enclosed by loose bricks and lightly plastered cement. Behind the door, is a bundle of papers containing grandpa’s notes, according to which, Pickering had taken a huge debt of $320,000 from Jack’s grandfather. They come to know that Pickering was plotting against Jack. Together with Larry and Stoddard, the village’s chaplain, Jack drives away Pickering and his team, who are all after the buried treasure.
On the flip side, Jack had begun to think that Marian is mixed up with Pickering and she is the one who had told him about his disappearance from the mansion. Jack turns revengeful against her, despite his initial adoration and love for her. Jack even starts doubting Bates. Everybody seems to be involved in the conspiracy against him.
At last, an enormous twist unfolds in the story when through a secret passageway concealed inside the chimneypiece, Jack’s grandfather steps in. He had never died. All this time, he had been living isolated in Egypt. He had actually plotted this entire drama for various reasons. Firstly, he wanted to know who was actually faithful to him. Pickering was not. And second, he wanted Jack to pay attention to his architectural expertise, by uncovering the clues he had hidden inside various places in the mansion. Only two people knew about the truth about his grandfather. One was Bates and the other was Marian. The old man also reveals a box of treasure that he had hidden inside an iron safe tucked behind the chimneypiece.
The novel wraps up with a happy ending with Jack’s love for Marian rekindled into a marriage and he becoming the sole owner of his grandfather’s inheritance.
The novel features elaborate descriptions and classical retro-themed writing style, interesting purpose-driven characters and a plot characterized by a thrilling mystery and tidbits of romance adding to the perfume of the storyline. I totally enjoyed reading it, and so will you if like to read mysteries and adventure thrillers.
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Book Review: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn | Summary and Life Lessons

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 some other clues such as Amy’s diary, colossal-amounting credit-card bills, a woodshed with the things bought from the credit cards and more likewise.

Nick’s life becomes miserable as all cameras flash at him, sloshing him with negative limelight and asking him the recurring question, “Where is Amy?” To this, he doesn’t seem to have any answer. But as chapters unfold, he too accepts his guilty over certain aspects of their marriage. For example, he admits being in a secret affair with a woman named Andie, one of his young students. But despite admitting everything he might have been guilty for, his mind becomes kerfuffled with the way the clues uncover and make him the culprit of his wife’s disappearance-slash-murder.

With some more hints that Nick discovered privately, he became certain that his wife Amy had been framing him. Upon digging deeper and further, his belief that Amy is a total psychopath, becomes stronger and stronger. On the flip side, Amy is depicted to be escaping her house with a sharp plan. Apparently, she had been outlining this plan for the past year, meticulously planning every detail and every move, scruplously placing all the clues in their respective positions where they will be found by the police and prove Nick as a suspect of her disappearance.

The twist of fate comes when Amy loses all her money to two goons who pretended to be her friends and robbed her of all cash. She then calls support by secretly calling one of her school friends Desi, who gets fooled by her pitiful words and takes her into shelter in his luxurious lakehouse. However, there too, Amy feels nearly imprisoned and having no freedom of her own. So she makes another plan. She kills Desi, abuses herself to make it look that Desi abused her and then returns to Nick with this storyline.

Nick understands that she is lying and is actually a criminal. He asks her for divorce. But before he does, Amy already tells him that she is pregnant. She threatens him to drop his desire for separation, otherwise she will turn his own child against him. In the end, both of them make a mutual pact. They spend the rest of the lives together with each other, believing that their projected versions of each other were true, and denying the real versions of each other.

The story epitomizes a smorgasboard of insights and life lessons. Here are 10 insights I learned from the reading of this book.

1. Although we have a deep urge to see the real versions of others, but in most cases, if we could really see their real selves, we would end up hating them.
2. Public appearances matter.
3. Appearances are superficial in nature.
4. Life can take a twist any moment.
5. Relationships are delicate bonds. Handle carefully.
6. Trust your instincts but don’t believe your feelings.
7. All the people who we come across in our life, we wear their characters as costumes in our psyche.
8. A psychopath never changes. Only promises to change.
9. Lying to oneself and others doesn’t change the reality of who we are, what we did and what we are doing.
10. Don’t try to be the “Cool Girl” or the “Nice Boy”. Trying to please others only makes things complicated in the end. Just be yourself!

Wrapping up the review, I’d say, give it a read and immerse yourself in its mystery and thrill. This mystery-thriller is 588-pages long and written in the form of chapters alternating between Nick’s dialogue and Amy’s diary entries. The book murmurs like a hallucination and echoes like the whispery rustle of the nighttime leaves, long after I have finished it. At the same time, it is slightly creepy and snarly to the inner self, not forgetting the entanglement of psychological games and tendencies prowling in our heads like some secretive jerks.

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Book Review: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

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, which, by now were bleeding to wounds.
Being a famed detective, it was the onus of Poirot, to find the man’s murderer. With the help of Bouc and doctor, Poirot examined the dead body, collected the clues, interviewed all the passengers in the train, poozled through their baggages, took their witnessing accounts and jotted down all the evidences in his notebook. Despite being a mystery crackerjack, Poirot’s mind was wracked by several flies in the ointment. Since no one could have entered the train and no one could have left it either, he was perplexed by the realities that were forming in his mind based on the evidences gathered.
If no one entered or exited the train, then who murdered the man? And if there was a passenger involved in the murder, why was there no evidence against any passenger? And even if the murderer was hidden among the passengers, why did he (or she) stab the man in not one, not two but twelve places? What kind of a psychopathic scheme was going on here?
Exercising his brain beyond its capacity, Poirot listened to his instinctual guesses, which in the end turned out to be the truth. Evidently, it was not one person who was involved in the murder, but the entire train, all the twelve passengers, which was also the reason why everybody was acting as everybody else’s alibi, not giving away any real evidence during the search.
This is the second Agatha Christie mystery that I have read, and no wonder, it was as intriguing as chilling. A closed mystery set up in the atypical setting of a train, the book highlighted how masked can be the reality that we see with our eyes. What Poirot saw with his eyes puzzled him, but what he trusted with his instincts led him towards the solution of the murder mystery. So, watch out! ‘Cause everything you see is not always what it seems.
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Book Review: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

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, a police inspector, a religious spinster woman, a butler and his wife, a war general, and a handsome athlete. The arrangements inside the mansion seem to be flawless with rooms furnished with exotic linen, decorative ornaments and generously-provided delectable food. On the dining table, there are ten china figurines of Indian boys. The host, Mr. Owen has not arrived yet in the mansion.
In every room, there is a framed copy of the following nursery rhyme titled Ten Little Indians:
Ten little Indian boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were nine.
Nine little Indian boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were eight.
Eight little Indian boys travelling in Devon;
One said he’d stay there and then there were seven.
Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.
Six little Indian boys playing with a hive;
A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.
Five little Indian boys going in for law;
One got in Chancery and then there were four.
Four little Indian boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.
Three little Indian boys walking in the Zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were two.
Two little Indian boys sitting in the sun;
One got frizzled up and then there was one.
One little Indian boy left all alone;
He went and hanged himself and then there were none.
Things turn sinister when on their first dinner evening, the butler plays a gramophone record as he was ordered by the Mr. Owen he had never seen. The unknown voice in the record accuses each of the ten guests of murdering someone in their past. Soon enough, the guests start getting murdered one by one, and that too occurring just as in this rhyme. Correspondingly, the ten china figurines began to disappear one by one after each murder happening.
The murders occurred in the most suspicious ways that left the remaining guests guessing and guessing who the actual murderer was. They were simply dropping like flies. Driven by terror, the guests then started suspecting each other of the murders.
“From now on, it is our task to suspect each and everyone amongst us. Forewarned is forearmed. Take no risks and be alert to danger. That is all.” They went thinking.
But the murders kept happening, the mystery remaining unsolved till the end. Even when all the ten guests were dead and a police detective visited the island to inspect, he too was unable to decipher the source of all these murders, for the murders were too well-crafted. Each murder threw the suspicion on some or the other guest but nothing became clear.
A spine-chilling horror and classic thriller, this is a closed circle mystery with ‘whodunnit’ feeling lingering till the end. The book is also a chronicle of what a human being is capable of doing especially when their psyche is driven by extreme fear and guilt. The story is a doorway into the psychological world that is muddled up in venomous psychopathy, terrifying realities and enigmatic puzzlement. For me, the novel turned out to be a stem-winding, slightly unsettling but overall a captivating read!
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Book Review: Deception Point by Dan Brown

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 President Herney, loss. But events unfolded in such a way that left both parties baffled beyond wonderment.
Somewhere in the Milne Ice Shelf, beneath thick layers of glacial Arctic ice, NASA discovered a shiny rock, which upon experimentation was concluded to be a meteorite from another planet. The meteorite contained fossils of giant-sized bugs, hinting the proof of extraterrestial life.
The sudden discovery turned the tables for the aspiring presidential parties. Keeping the discovery a secret, President Herney decided to reveal it in a worldwide video conference. Behind the scenes, he brought into picture an intelligence analyst Rachel Sexton from the national intelligence agency NRO.
Rachel was the daughter of Senator Sexton. She had a conflicting relationship with her father, first because she thought her father was a mysogynist, and second because she worked in an organization that belonged to President Herney’s party and her father despised her for that.
Upon NASA’s meteorite discovery, President Herney secretly called Rachel to confirm the discovery by going to Milne Ice Shelf, seeing the meteorite and then brief his team about the same.
Puzzled, before she could digest all the information, she was taken to the Arctic ice in a private chopper. There she met a scientist, a geologist and a celebrity oceanographer who too like Rachel, were personally hired by the president to test the authenticity of the meteorite. They were certain of the discovery that NASA had indeed discovered a meteorite with the proof of life on other planets. They had prepared a documentary film with the evidences which the President would showcase to the world in his video conference.
There was an abrupt turn of events when Rachel and these scientists discovered illuminating planktons in the water of the pit from where the meteorite was taken out. Upon testing further, they found out that the water was salty, hinting that it was from ocean. The moment they made these discoveries, they got attacked by ice bullets from unknown assailants and got thrown in the depths of the Arctic ocean. Although they got saved by a military submarine, they got bushwacked and tracked by these unknown attackers. Meanwhile, Rachel discovered a stunning deception that sent chills down her spine
She needed to reveal this deception to President Herney but before she could, she got attacked again by the unknown assailants who almost shot her down into the moonlit sea waters where sharks were waiting to devour her.
Once rescued from the deadly sea, almost frozen and terrified by the deceptions unfurled, she reached the press conference where her father Senator Sexton was going to destroy NASA and President Herney by revealing the information about the deceptions. But his blind ambition overthrew him in the pit of his own scandalous past activities including bribery and secret affair with his personal assistant. The flabbergasting deceptions of NASA got revealed to the public but also the shadows behind Senator Sexton. But both the NASA as well as President Herney were innocent bystanders, unaware of the whole game.
Ostensively, the meteorite which NASA had discovered as well as the discovery itself was a big fraud well-fabricated by a mastermind to secure NASA from losing its foothold. It was not even a meteorite but an ocean rock burned by slushhydrogen, made to appear like a meteorite and inserted under the ice shelf manually. But what was even bigger a deception was the person who was the mastermind behind all this plan. He was a person Rachel could never expect in lifetimes. Her boss Bill Pickering, the director of the intelligence organization NRO where she worked as the intelligence gister.
Like most hoodwinkers, Pickering too had his own personal motives and agendas behind being overly protective for NASA, for he wanted to acquire it under his intelligence organization. His deception worked in a way killing many innocents who lost their lives to the bullets of his machine guns and his secret poison-tinted spy cameras and flying microbots including president’s loyal and brainy senior advisor Marjorie Tench.
Like other Dan Brown books, this mystery too is intriguing and tantalizing with endless tunnels of twists between twists. The settings are well-described especially the scenes on the Arctic glacier and the adjoining seas. Concepts and facts are researched in detailing which only adds more allurement to the overall story. Each chapter is a drawing card for the following chapter. The unpredictability of the plot makes the book unputdownable till the very end!

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Book Review: Digital Fortress by Dan Brown | Human Mind is the Greatest Supercomputer!

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 experiences throughout lifetime. Even these thoughts, bubbling and falling all the time, have an expiry date. Even though, perhaps the cassette tape of these thoughts might never seem to come to a halt, however, over time, the content of these thoughts seem to break, dissipate and transform, especially if we pay attention to them.

This entity we call as the brain, is a magnanimously-intelligent computer, that churns out thoughts, bringing them to the light of our attention, wherein, the thought forms deconstruct and ultimately self-destruct themselves, settling back into the ocean from where they first emerged.

Alright.

Moving on and further, shall we ask, what about the world of technology? What about the program codes written in the memory of an actual computer, in order to facilitate its functioning?

Typically, in the community of hackers, cryptographers and programmers, the programs and codes are seen with the viewpoint of their ‘breakability’. That is, how easy or complex it is, for them, to break a certain code.

Above everything else, this pops up a series of questions for the one trying to break a piece of code. Questions such as,

“How easy or difficult it is to break this code?”
“Is there an unbreakable code?”
“If there exists an unbreakable code, then, what implications it can have, if it gets into the hands of someone with evil intentions?”

Well, this novel, titled Digital Fortress by Dan Brown is a techno-thriller that unfolds a story musing over scenarios like these in a twisty sequence of events packed and embedded cleverly into the story.

The story is mainly set in a location comprising of the handsome premises of a setting of tech-powered buildings which belong to the largest intelligence security agency of United States, named as NSA (National Security Agency). The job that NSA does is likely to the metaphor of the Big Brother. Which means that they have access to all the information belonging to the public as well as to the government. All this information, along with all the details of the encryption algorithms, is stored inside their gazillion-sized gigantic data banks. In short, the job of NSA is to be an invisible eye for securing the information from unethical access, as well as keeping a careful watch on the dangerous information exchanges from groups such as terrorist organizations, dark web communities, fraudulent activities, and so on…
They are the one who guard the guards of the national intelligence.

Top-of-the-line code-breakers and some of the most brilliant minds in cryptography work for NSA.

Well, above and beyond all this, NSA has created something which they are proud of, the most. NSA has a supercomputer called TRANSLTR. According to the commander of NSA, the TRANSLTR is the greatest and the most efficient supercomputer that can break any code.

Yet, one day, this computer encounters a code that it doesn’t seem to be able to break. The code keeps running and running in a loop. Which, not only wastes a large amount of their computer’s electrical power. but also blocks it from processing other codes pending in their queue. Worried, the commander of NSA, Trevor Strathmore calls their head cryptographer Susan Fletcher to check up on what was happening.

To their dismay, Strathmore and Susan discover that NSA is being held a hostage by this code which its creator calls as the ‘Digital Fortress’. The code was written by a former NSA employee Ensei Tankado, who had a personal enemity with NSA because he thought that they were doing an inethical job by keeping an intrusive eye on the personal information of the people of America. Being a genius cryptographer and almost a cult icon among hackers, Tankado warned NSA that they must reveal their intrusion to the public or either lose their supercomputer TRANSLTR to Digital Fortress, a code which he told them, was unbreakable. Besides, he warned them that if they were unable to reveal the truth to the public in a given span of time, he would release the unbreakable code worldwide, which would destroy NSA’s reputation, by giving access to NSA’s data bank to even a three-year old, forget about the terrorists, criminals and other secret communities. It was NSA’s job after all, to encrypt and protect the information of the government and its people.

Susan Fletcher, though the head cryptographer and a brilliant mathematician, was unable to crack this code. But at the same time, she couldn’t believe that there could be an unbreakable code. In cryptography, an unbreakable code is a mathematical impossibility.

Their only hope, if they had one, was to find a passkey, as quick as possible, which could stop this loopy code from running on TRANSLTR, and also prevent Tankado from releasing this unbreakable code to the public.

However, to multiply their trouble, they find that Tankado, the 32-year old cryptographer has died a sudden death in Spain. The NSA commander Strathmore sends David Becker to retrieve the passkey, which, according to their information, was lettered and engraved on a gold ring worn by Tankado. David, a professor who taught Linguistics and Modern Languages, was not directly connected to NSA, but being the fiancee of Susan Fletcher, was the only trustworthy person Strathmore could entrust with this secret.

Arriving in Spain, David finds that he has not only lost the ring from Tankado’s body, but he was being pursued by an unknown man whose name was Hulohot. Entrapped in a cat-and-mouse chase with Hulohot, each clue that David stumbles upon, makes him feel as if he is moving further and away from where the ring could be found.

On the other side, every moment running short of time, NSA’s Cryptography Division witnesses an unusual commotion. While Strathmore and Susan Fletcher are unable to arrive either at a conclusion or a decision, the rest of the employees, began to sense something strange going on. One of the employees, Phil Chartrukian, thinking that a bug has seeped into TRANSLTR, rushes to power off the computer, only to get burned in the power room.

As Susan pours her attention over and over to the Digital Fortress as well as to all the clues, startling reality is revealed, sending shivers down her spine, and breaking her heart to the core. Concluding that she cannot trust anybody, not even the NSA Commander Strathmore, she decides to escape from the Crypto as quick as possible, but finds herself locked inside the building which is completely automated by computers and technology.

Meanwhile, the departments in other buildings of NSA are also beginning to sense something suspicious going on in the Crypto division. But before they can do anything about it, the employees watch from the windows, as the domed metallic crypto building is fuming with volcanoes of molten metal and splinters of metallic chips fireworking like discolights through the entire Crypto building.

Nearly all the employees of the Crypto department present inside the building are burned to ashes. Susan Fletcher is able to escape.

Together with the NSA Director named Fontaine, Susan and some other employees of NSA, and David who is found half-unconscious in Spain, they are able to crack the passkey just in the last moment, which also freezes them into a stunning revelation.

Digital Fortress was nothing but a deception, a ghost. There was no such algorithm. Tankado had lured them to an illusion and NSA had taken the bait by believing that there actually was an algorithm with an unbreakable code. Lured, frightened and taken into his trap, NSA’s Commander Strathmore had bypassed the security virus filters and had unconsciously participated in allowing this Digital Fortress algorithm to run on their supercomputer. While Tankado had simply written a delusory code, and fearing the unbreakability, NSA had bypassed their security checks, letting the Digital Fortress to disrupt the functioning of their own supercomputer (TRANSLTR).

Though, in the end, the passkey they find is able to prevent their data banks from getting leaked into the public, and secure their supercomputer.

All in all, the book is an intruiging and immersive work of fiction, mainly relating to the themes of mystery, suspense, technological thriller, government surveillance, adventure fiction and science fiction.

The scenes are written and depicted in a way that not only keeps the reader’s attention immersed and gripped, but also enables the experience of a curious tension building up over time, as we flip through the chapters. No wonder, the storyline is a magnetic tangle of plot twists, but at the same time, it is quite insightful and thought-provoking too, especially when we talk about the present day, in the age when the digital transformation is rapidly taking over the globe…

Wrapping it all up, Digital Fortress is a brilliant work of fiction that leaves us with an imprint worthy of deep reflection…that is,
Great supercomputers appear and disappear. But human mind is the greatest supercomputer, the greatest of all, the most mysterious of all. So, operate wisely!

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Book Review: Origin by Dan Brown

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 something or someone as the source of their origin, or is it possible to elaborate the process of human evolution in terms of a summation of various other processes like that of chemical reactions, volcanic eruptions, star explosions, nucleotide multiplication, microorganism activity, so forth and so on…

Religion and science. Science and spirituality. Are these two ideas at conflicting loggerheads with one another, or are they leading to a realization that is, but only, one and the same?

ORIGIN by Dan Brown is a mystery thriller, mushrooming from the deep-rooted connection that lies between science and spirituality; and centered around the themes of mystery, suspense, science, technology, AI, past & future, religion and spirituality.

Robert Langdon, the signature character of Dan Brown, appears in the storyline as a professor of symbology. One day, he is invited to attend an event organized by one of his early Harvard student named Edmond Kirsch. Edmond, who is a forty-year old billionaire is a brilliant scientist and a great connoisseur of modern art, with several discoveries, both patented & secret, starring along his name, and a knack for doing things ‘a different way, his own way’.

Edmond seems to have made a discovery, that he believes, is going to drastically transform the picture of the world’s consciousness, shattering the ground of all the religion and elevating it to a fresh perspective for the people the world over, a point of view to gain insight into the understanding of concepts like God, universe, humans, technology and destiny.

And in this event, which has been organized at the venue of Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum, meticulously orchestrated for attendees with mind-blowing, futuristic AI technologies, worldwide LIVE streaming and finest details drawing down to the brass tacks, Edmond is going to announce these outstanding discoveries.

Discoveries, which are mainly related to human origin and human destiny…

People in the audience are welcomed with provisions of one-of-a-kind headsets, directly connected to a humanoid who introduces and voices itself in their ears by the name of ‘Winston’.

However, not only this noteworthy event is disrupted to a sudden thumping halt, but also, stuns the millions of viewers worldwide with a terrible disappointment that Edmond’s discovery may never be revealed and may remain a secret forever. A former navy officer named Luis Avila, who has been hired by someone called as ‘The Regent’, shots Edmond dead, almost enigmatically, while he is delivering his speech on the stage and just before the moment when he is about to showcase the presentation containing the content of his ground-breaking discovery.

Apparently, no one knows anything about Edmond’s discoveries except for Edmond himself and three priests he had met earlier at the Parliament of World Religions – two of whom already murdered by someone secret.

To find and preserve his discovery, Professor Robert flees away from the museum along with the museum director Ambra Vidal, who is also the future queen of Spain.

Robert and Ambra, fly away from the museum to the city of Barcelona, where Edmond’s house is located. At every step, they are helped and guided by Winston, who is not only a mere gadget, but a state-of-the-art humanoid supercomputer designed personally by Edmond. Winston not only helps them escape the tight security of the museum, but also books a boat and helicopter for them. Winston was programmed by Edmond to do these tasks on an automated basis.
Upon arrival in Barcelona, a series of clues and facts are unfolded into Robert’s attention, including that Edmond, while living, had been suffering from cancer. Followed by the speech left unfinished by Edmond, the clues lead them to a trail that ends at Sagrada Familia, which is Spain’s famous, partially-constructed, unfinished church located in the city. Inside the church, Robert and Ambra come across a rare volume of William Blake’s poetry collection donated to the church by Edmond.

Joining all the dots together and picturing a cohesive view of the cluster of Edmond’s clues, the next and the last place they reach is Barcelona Supercomputing Center, which was also Edmond’s personal computer laboratory. Arriving inside this AI-powered laboratory and entering the passcode in Edmond’s personal computer, they are able to retrieve and broadcast Edmond’s recorded presentation to the worldwide audience.

The novel wraps up with a startling conclusion, wherein, Robert discovers that ‘The Regent’ was none other than the supercomputer humanoid Winston. Oddly enough, Winston was instructed by Edmond to increase the public viewership of his speech to as big a number as possible, any way it was possible.

And Winston, what was Winston except merely for an intelligently-coded computer, programmed to execute the instructions inputted by its user. Its owner. So, since Edmond had instructed Winston to increase the audience number as big as possible, the humanoid supercomputer did exactly as it was instructed. It churned out a possibility that nothing would be more attention-catching than witnessing Edmond’s death on the stage itself, just before the discovery was revealed to the audience. And so, this humanoid supercomputer, innocent if we should call it, planned Edmond’s death to prove him a martyr in front of the world, and so, when Edmond was murdered on the stage, his speech left unfinished, the audience counter worldwide naturally exponentiated to millions and more millions. When Edmond’s speech discovered by Robert and Ambra was broadcasted worldwide, his viewership did indeed cross millions and millions!

The humanoid supercomputer did carry out the task as instructed and programmed into it, yet, Robert is left wondering whose goal it actually fulfilled, and who was the one who could be attributed to have done it? A machine or a human?

Ultimately, the novel leaves us with only one lesson,

Be careful what you wish for!

but wait, it also reminds us an evergreen code-ish insight,
No matter what you wish or create, everything that is created at any point in time, is inherently programmed to self-destruct itself in the end. What is born inevitably dies!

To sum it all up,
We may be humans,
but all of us live by some invisible humanoid-like code,
that seems to have been coded into the deepest neural recesses lurking inside our brains…
What is your brain’s code?
Think but don’t think.
Because, every code, ultimately, self-destructs itself, irrespective of who the coder is!
What matters all the better, are the things like beams of golden sunlight, the changing weather, the swinging breath, the pulsating heartbeat – things which lie far beyond the scope of this mechanical entity called as the brain…
What do you think?

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Book Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

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 of Millenium magazine), Lisbeth Salander (a clever hacker and a star-rated freelance researcher who works for a security company) and Vanger family consisting of hundreds of family members, who occupy the entire estate of Hedeby Island in Sweden.

The mystery number one reveals itself when Mikael writes and publishes an article about the financial corruption of a top-spot business empire owned by Wennerström. Followed by the release of this article in public, Mikael is sued with several false allegations that could be equally damaging to his reputation as to the sales of Millenium magazine which is partly owned by him. Like an abrupt flip-flop of events, Mikael gets himself embrolled and entangled in a lawsuit against the CEO of Wennerström business empire.

The mystery number two presents itself to Mikael in the form of a phone call. A phone call from a person named Dirch Frode, who is the official lawyer of an eighty-year old man named Henrik Vanger. Henrik Vanger is the owner of Vanger Corporation, which is one of the wealthiest and another top-spot business empires.

Henrik Vanger has been looking to hire Mikael for the job of solving two mysteries for him. These mysteries were linked to a series of events which occurred nearly forty years ago. One event concerned the strange disappearance of Henrik’s granddaughter Harriet, who was sixteen year old at the time when she disappeared all of a sudden 40 years ago.

Apparently, the mystery of her disappearance seemed to be interconnected with yet another mystery, which was the ‘The Case of The Pressed Flowers’. The 80-year old Henrik Vanger told Blomkvist that it was only his grandniece Harriet who used to gift him these framed flowers each year on his birthday. And so, receiving these flowers every year after her disappearance was a sign that indicated that someone knew this secret about Harriet and that someone was trying to torment him with these flowers - these flowers framed in portraits, wrapped as his birthday gifts and sent to him from various places and from an unknown sender....

He further told Mikael that it was his anticipation that Harriet didn’t only disappear just like that, but rather she was murdered, and that too by one of the members of the Vanger family. And he was almost certain of this suspicion.

And so, Mikael was hired for the job of solving these mysteries for Mister Vanger, in return of which, he’d be paid a mammoth sum, as well as provided some good evidence against Wennerström, which could help him drop out of the lawsuit.

This was meant to be a cold case, for which Mikael would stay away from the town, in a cottage in Hedeby Island for an year, in order to carry out a thorough research of all the members of Vanger family, concerning the mystery. Though, reluctant at first, Mikael agreed to take up the job on the thought that solving these cases would help him save his reputation and get him out of the Wennerström lawsuit.

As he began his research, Mikael discovered that most if not all the members of the Vanger family turned out to be somewhat strange, weird, unusually freaky, bizarre and aloof to the point of stirring his curious idiosyncrasy.

Overwhelmed by the information of his research, soon enough, he also hired an assistant to work with him on this mystery. The assistant was Lisbeth Salander. Lisbeth was a freelance researcher who worked for Dragan Armansky, the CEO of Milton Security, a company which offered a variety of security-related products and services. Though seemingly introverted, socially-absent, hard-nosed, emotionally unresponsive and almost psychopathic as she appeared to be, but according to Armansky, she was one of the most brilliant, and gifted investigative researchers he had ever come across. This girl with a dragon tattoo perched in glaze on her shoulder…

Guess what, she was a genius hacker too…

Even Mikael, during their work, was surprised to notice her sharp photographic memory and her excellent research reports, that he couldn’t deny but only appreciate her brains even more.

However only, Lisbeth’s sharp brains hadn’t prevented her from getting labeled by the law as ‘psychologically disordered’ personality, the consequence of which was that her life was taken under the control of a guardianship agency, where, paradoxically, the guardian would exploit her dependance and reputation for their personal interests.

Lisbeth liked working with Mikael, because according to her, he was one of those persons who treated her like a human. She dedicated days and weeks and months to tracing the archives and researching the internet, trying to sew together the scattered clumps of mystery one way or the other…

Followed by a gigantic research work and a few startling clues, Mikael and Lisbeth arrive at a baffling discovery. A cruel reality of sadism, victimhood, cult superstition and criminal activity resulting from these tendencies.

As it turned out in the end, the criminal behind Harriet’s disappearance revealed to be none other than a member of Vanger’s family. Harriet’s own brother, Martin Vanger.

Martin was years ago initiated by their father Gottfried Vanger, who was possessed by a sadistic tendency to torture and murder women. Gottfried, who was Henrik’s brother’s son, was a man who hated women. And he in turn taught his son to hate women. This, led to a series of murders which Lisbeth and Mikael discovered while researching the mystery…

Martin is revealed to be a seriel murderer and criminal, who even had a private torture chamber where he tortured women, slaughtering and murdering them to bits and pieces.

But this is not all. The story cascades into a series of more stunning secrets and collapsing realities that unfold gradually.

The novel is a chilling psychological thriller that combines a murder mystery, the psychopathology of cultish sadism and plenty of financial tidbits. But it is also a story of one-sided love – the love that Lisbeth feels for Mikael but that which is an impossibility.

The novel is
not only entertaining
but absolutely thrilling
and more than anything else, whackingly heartbreaking.

The book was published posthumously in 2005 after author’s death in 2004, and was an instant bestseller internationally, This particular edition is an English-translated version, but the original novel was penned in Swedish language, the original title for which is ‘Men Who Hate Women’.

A drastic depiction of the horrible reality of a world sooted with pathological tendencies innate of human organism. The storyline also hits at the ugly consequences that result from twisted misinterpretations of religious scriptures. From a creative writer’s perspective, the book features a regular third-person narrative, with descriptions neither too bland nor too verbose. The dialogues are painted with a writing style that crisply highlights character-specific voice expressions, which seems to add a dramatic and immersive effect for the reader.

All in all, the book is one of the most intriguing works of crime fiction and psychological thrillers.

Thank you,
Neha
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Book Review: Password to Larkspur Lane

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 beauty.

Disguising as a nurse, Nancy disentombs the gang’s whereabouts, rescuing the senior citizens, as well as collaring the thieves from getting inside grannie’s crystal garden and getting their hands on the glinting crystal pieces.
Buzzing with oodles of thrill, engrossing scenes, cinematic characters and all things flowers, the novel is yet another immersive read from the Nancy Drew-Carolyn Keene series!



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Book Review: The Mystery of the Ivory Charm

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 plot comes to a twist when this boy runs away from the circus, following Nancy and her friends to her house. While gifting her this charm and saying it was a harbinger of good fortune, he begs her to solve his mystery and discover his real father, unlike what they had thought, was not Rai.
They topple over several clues - an abandoned house with no floor but only a labyrinth of tunnels, a strange woman Mrs. Allison who abruptly goes into trance muttering verses from her golden jewelled psychic versebook and a roll of papers hidden in a coffeepot, reading which, the detective trio is taken aback into bewilderment.
The ending marks a remarkably cinematic reunion and the revelation of an ancient Indian scientific theory. The mystery is sure-shot to keep the readers hooked till the end, as it did for me.
As far as the mystery of the life-giving power of the ivory charm is concerned, well, the novel divulges the secret consequentially.
The plot is immersive and characters crisp. A delightful addition to the reading list!

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Book Review: The Clue of the Velvet Mask

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 turns out to be one of those signature masks that all the gang-members use for all their robberies.
Upon examining the mask, Nancy comes upon a stunning clue. The mask seems to contain the inkling of a string of numbers, quite strange though. Spending several days solving the puzzle of these printed numbers, she concludes that these numbers are all those dates on which the black velvet gang has planned their respective robberies.
Intrigued by this clue, Nancy reaches out to Linda’s boss Mr. Tombar, who seems to her as suspicious as the mysterious robberies.
Party after party, event after event, Nancy keeps on losing the gang. Each time, the thieves seem to be fooling the butlers, sneaking in cleverly and slipping out in manner as well as cunning.
While she shadows all the suspicious persons to the best of her wits, her dear friend George gets kidnapped and hypnotized with the warnings of not chasing the Black Velvet Gang anymore. For days and days, George seems to remain too flabbergasted to utter a word.
However, Nancy, as no faint-hearted she is anyway, she keeps pursuing all the culprits.
Ultimately, Nancy comes across a clue she might never have guessed by herself. The culprits had been hiding the stolen antiques, paintings and goods inside a local antique store run by a friend of Nancy, Mr. Taylor.
With much hassle though, but the Black Velvet Gang is caught red-handed at last. And Nancy breathes a sigh of relief, having solved one of the most puzzling mysteries of her life.
The book is well-written, and like other parts of this Nancy Drew-Carolyn Keene series, the book promises immersiveness, interest and spiraly plot. All characters including Mr. Tombar, Linda, Mrs. & Mr. Sneakers, Erine etc. are well-drawn and so are the descriptions pertaining to the event settings. The book was much delight to read!

Thank you & Good day!
Neha

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Book Review: The Whispering Statue

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 beginning to smell something spooky going on, here.

As she hops from clue to clue, she is led into an artist’s workshop where, soon after locating the secret connection between Basswood and this artist named Marco De Keer, Nancy finds herself kidnapped and gagbound inside a statue. Yes! Inside a statue…

However, a baffling secret is revealed to her, about the statue inside which she has been locked.

The novel ends with Nancy solving not only the mystery related to Mrs. Merriam’s antique book-collection, but also the mystery of the statue, which, people of this area, would call as ‘The Whispering Statue’…

Yet another Immersive mystery from the Nancy Drew-Carolyn Keene series!

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Book Review: The Mystery at Lilac Inn

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 living alongside Emily, her elderly aunt Hazel is becoming low-spirited and heart-sick day after day, agonized over what horror is going to unfold next and engulf them.

A waitress reports seeing a ghostly phantom, and flees away from the inn without notice. Tools go missing from the garden toolbox. Electric power spookily fluctuates on and off, while the cause for it remains unidentified.

But most of all, what scares them all, is the theft of Emily’s diamonds. These were the diamonds that Emily’s late mother had bequested to her before her death. The gems were to be handed over to Emily on her eighteenth birthday by her aunt.

Withal, the very moment when her aunt is presenting this pouch of diamonds to her on her birthday dinner, the lights shut off abruptly and by the time it is back, the diamonds are gone!

Before Nancy can dig deeper into the mystery, she is shoved off with yet another riddle to solve. Apparently, as she takes back-to-back sleuthing trips from the inn to her house, riding in her boat, Nancy comes across a shocking discovery that a girl is impersonating her.

While she’s home, the people at the inn report seeing her, complaining of her weird behaviour, and while she’s away from her home, at the inn, the people in her hometown blame her for causing troubles to them.

Nancy is puzzled, but more than that, she is determined to catch the culprit and bring her into light. But guess what, the unfolding events only pull her deeper and deeper into the spiralling well of questions.

Determined that she is, but at the same time, she feels disheartened to be unable to distinguish real from unreal. Anyone and everyone appears to be the suspect to her binocular eyes. Sometimes, her attention shifts towards a gardener named Gill, while sometimes to Maud Potter, the social director of the inn. But, still and all, she doesn’t seem to arrive at any conclusion.

On top of that, the inn itself seems to her as a never-ending piece of puzzle. Despite having monitored every nook and corner of the inn, she is unsure whether she has seen it all. While she is tiptoeing through the inn following the diamond theft, she discovers a panel hidden behind one of the walls of the room from where the diamonds were stolen. The panel further reveals several other panels leading the way to the outside of inn’s quarters. She also discovers, in the garden, some mysterious typewritten notes, each one containing an unusual code-word.

Meanwhile, Helen too reports seeing a ghost during the night, as Nancy finds her unconscious under a tree. The cottages, where Nancy and Helen are staying are burned to ashes while they are taking a walk in the garden. The culprits don’t leave them even while they are relaxing by skin-diving in the river. While they’re swimming, they are hit and struck by something what resembles a shark-like object.

Before Nancy herself could connect the dots, a phone call arrives, informing her that a theft has taken place in her home. Her identity card has been stolen and is being misused by the girl who is posing as her impersonator.

Nancy is clueless as her mind is racing in a thousand different directions, all at the same time.

Albeit, she rides back to her hometown, informs Chief McGinnis, the head of police, a dear friend of her father, and makes several visits to the list of suspicions she has – the old waitress’ house, the house of the former employer of this waitress, and the jewelry showroom where her identity card was misused…

Gathering several clues, Nancy locks herself in her room, and concentrates all her nerves to connect the pieces of mystery. At last, her mind causes her to craft a secret plan which, though, could risk her life, but would enable her to catch the mischief-making culprit. Nancy rides back to the inn without telling anyone about it, and secretly hides inside an empty cottage to avoid any attention that might alarm the suspects.

Successful at last, she comes across the girl who is not only revealed to be her mirroring impersonator, but also the ghost of the inn!

But wait, Nancy’s troubles aren’t over yet…

Before she can catch this girl, she is hit on her head from behind, only to faint and find herself rope-tied inside an underwater boat’s cabin.

Further events reveal shocking bits and pieces. The girl is nobody but a Broadway actress who, is switching her roles between becoming a waitress and an actress. Emily’s stolen diamonds too, are found to be hidden inside the girl’s lipstick case. There are other suspects in her gang too, some of whom, Nancy had suspected, quite early in the mystery.

As Nancy tries to absorb it all, the boat suddenly catches fire. The gang of culprits leave her all alone, gagged and locked in the burning, sinking boat. Nancy’s only hope is God. And the help does appear, in the form of his father who seems to be riding in a boat alongside Chief McGinnis. Spotting the smoky fumes rising from an underwater boat, they rescue Nancy just before the boat explodes and spurts into shattered metallic chunks.

Like other novels of this mystery series, The Mystery of Lilac Inn, too, is a stupendous and immersive plot to read through. The storyline mentioned is just a speck of the many interesting tiny details patched into the mystery. So, yes, a Nancy Drew fan if you are, you’re going to read the book, and totally love it too!

Neha
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