Shelflite

Hachette

Pages: 310

Rs 395

Whynmouth is a sleepy,seaside village,with a stock cast of gossiping landladies,blathering vicars and schoolboys full of beans. And the outsider with the mysterious past,who comes to a sorry end. Admiral Penistone is found stabbed in a boat that floats up the river Wye. It8217;s a curious case,as all murders in sleepy English villages were in the 1930s. But the fingerprints on this crime scene are of the best in the business Agatha Christie,Dorothy L. Sayers and G.K. Chesterton being some of them. Yes,indeed. The Floating Admiral was written by 12 members of Britains Detection Club,a group of mystery writers who got together in 1930,met at dinners,and took an oath to stick to rules of fair play in detective fiction. This 1931 classic,reissued by Hachette,had each author writing one chapter,and the pleasure of entangling the plot for her successor in this literary game. Fair play it was though,each also had to submit,in a sealed envelope,their own solution to the mystery which you will find in the appendix. Dame Christies was the most ingenious.

Bhutan: Through the Lens of the King

Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk

Roli

Pages: 176

Rs 1,495

The king,Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk,has found his queen,and Bhutan has got its picture-perfect royal wedding. This book the kingdom photographed by the king is kind of like a return gift to the people. These are tiny Thimphu tales,in black and white and colour. There are royals and coronation ceremonies,masked dancers and monasteries,clouds clinging to mountans and,in the land where gross national happiness matters most,a few smiling villagers. The book ends in cheesy soft-focus with a photo of the bride.

Shit Happens!

Karan Puri

Prakash Bookstores

Pages: 160

Rs 95

This happens. In fact,this has happened quite a few times in that genre called desi-in-America. An Indian boy,a brainy but an average-looking kid,goes to a university in the United States and learns to speak the American. He cant get over the blonde girl he has fallen for or take in the beef reshmi kebab that he has bitten into. There are way too many illusions and italicised paragraphs.