Book Review : Dead Money by Srinath Adiga

Title : Dead Money

Author : Srinath Adiga

Genre : General Fiction ; Satire ; Politics ; Religion & Spirituality

Pages : 416

Release : 26 Jan 2021

I received this Advance Review Copy by Netgalley and Central Avenue Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley, Central Avenue Publishing for the opportunity!!

Blurb

They said you can’t take your money with you when you die. What if they were wrong? A stock market trader in Hong Kong desperate to pay off a fifty-three-million-dollar gangster debt. A mysterious suicide bomber in Mumbai under the spell of a dangerous myth. A banker in Amsterdam waging a lone battle to avert a global catastrophe. Three men whose fates are linked inextricably by a toxic financial product. One that promises happiness in the next world, yet has a devastating effect on this one. The choices they make about their individual moral dilemmas will affect the rest of humanity. Profound, intense and cleverly plotted with unexpected twists and turns, Dead Money is a multi-faceted satire about money, religion and how the very things that make us human can ultimately lead to our demise.

Review

Dead Money is the debut novel of the author Srinath Adiga. It is satire about religion, money, politics and spirituality. The idea of the book was so new and unbelievably different. The author had taken something very unbelievable and distinct as the core subject of his book and the most astonishing part is that he had written it pretty convincingly. I guess even the most rational and practical of personalities would forget the reality and simply delve into his story.

The book has been divided into three parts and each part is written from the perspective of three different individuals from different places like Hong Kong, Mumbai and Amsterdam respectively. The author had beautifully described all of these amazing places with his words. This book had so many different people from different societal backgrounds, religious backgrounds, languages, different ethnic groups and race. The way the author had brought all these set of people together to weave a plot was simply mind-blowing. But with the beginning of each part of the book it almost felt like reading a new story altogether and it took sometime to get used to the writing and narrative style of the author with each and every part of the book. The writing style could’ve been even more smooth and better. At certain point it felt tedious to read the book.

Though the beginning of each part was quite slow, the way the author had ended each of the part was simply amazing. The first two parts, that’s the story of a man from Hong Kong, Raymond Li and the story of a man from Mumbai, Sanjit was written down so very perfectly. With this book the author had come up with a novel concept called dead money, while Raymond Li’s character first came up with this idea of dead money, it almost felt like a joke initially but with each passing page the author had successfully rationalized the concept.

Among the three men, Theo, the guy from Amsterdam was the genuine personality and he is the guy I liked to read about in this book but somehow his side of the story wasn’t quite satisfying. The author could’ve worked more on Theo’s story to make it better and fulfilling. After reading the first two plots, Theo’s side of the story obviously felt quite disappointing and inefficient.

The author had talked about lot of issues in this book, the mad and blind beliefs of the people on myths, religions and spirituality. He had talked about the COVID Pandemic, economic recession, the fall of global economy, finance, racism, religious discrimination and many hard topics like that. Though it was all written very efficiently a couple of topics actually deviated the story from the main core. It was kind of forced and irrelevant.

The novel, anew idea of the book was outstanding. Despite having a slow start, the beginning and the middle of the book was amazing but somehow the end didn’t go so well. And that was highly disappointing.

My Views

The total idea of the book was so cool. I didn’t know how the author had come up with such a different and new story-line. It was completely a new experience to have read it. As I said earlier the end wasn’t satisfying, it felt inept. The ending of the book is as much important as the beginning of the book. Even if the book hadn’t been good from the beginning but if it had a good climax, the readers would almost forget the not so good beginning and will be wholly contented with the ending. So ending is very important, in that case, I would say the ending of this book actually damaged the good and amazing plot of the book. And the ending of the book was also written too very hastily.

There were stereotypical comments here and there in the book but I would like ignore it because of the novel idea and plot-line of the book. I really liked the way in which the author had satirically approached the issues spoken in the book. And also it made me think a lot. My favorite part of this book was, the way the first part of the book ended, that is the way Raymond Li’s side of the story ended. It was quite shocking and good.

My rating for this book would be 3 out 5 stars

I would recommend this book to people who love to read political, economical and religious satires. If you wanted to read something new and completely refreshing and satirical. You guys might enjoy this book to the core.

Here’s the link to buy the book!!

Releasing date : 26 Jan 2021

Do read this book and tell me how you feel about it on the comment session below!!

Happy Reading Folks!!

~ Meenu

Book Review of “Dead Money” by Srinath Adiga. Read the review to know about novel idea of the book!!

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