The Blue Bar by Damyanti Biswas

The Blue Bar by Damyanti Biswas

Series: Blue Mumbai #1 (Standalone) 

Genre: Police Procedural, Thriller, Romantic Suspense 

4.3 Stars 

One Liner: Gritty and dark police procedural; entertaining  

Tara Mondal disappears as a young bar dancer in Mumbai. No one knows where she went after a stint at a crowded railway station wearing a blue sequin saree. 

Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput has had a busy career, but he can’t stop thinking about his girlfriend, Tara. It has been thirteen years since her disappearance. 

A recent discovery of a dead body in a ligation land opens a can of worms. Inspector Arnav knows that it’s not a lone case but has very little to work on. It doesn’t help that the landowner is super rich and has enough influence to disrupt the case.  

As things are set in motion, Arnav realizes that the case has links to his past, and there’s someone out there who will do anything to prevent him from finding the killer. Can Arnav get to the root of the matter? What will it cost him? What does Tara have to do with everything?  

The story comes in the third-person POV of Arnav, Tara, and a couple of other characters. 

What I Like: 

As someone who devoured countless episodes of CID, Adalat, Arjun, Agent Raghav, PI, et al, reading this book was like revisiting the shows (albeit in a darker setting). Though I haven’t been to Mumbai, I identify the places from these shows. This familiarity is a definite plus. 

The book is a gritty and dark police procedural that reminded me of Madhur Bhandarkar movies. In fact, his film Chandni Bar shows the stark realities of dance bars, the connections with the Mumbai underworld, and prostitution. The book also has Ram Gopal Verma’s vibes (not his Twitter personality, but his movies like Company and Sarkar). 

Inspector Arnav is easy to like despite his flaws. Yeah, there were times I wanted to whack him on the head, but who doesn’t love a flawed character when he owns up to his mistakes and tries to become a better person? Tara and Zoya were well-etched. Nandini, too, though she is a little too flawless. 

There is a love track that is seamlessly integrated into the plot instead of providing relief from the tension. This helps in sustaining the tempo and the dark mood throughout the book. 

The story takes place during Dusshera and Diwali, which means there are enough references to Ravan Dahan. What I like (love) in this book is how Ravan is described as who he is. The killer is compared to Ravan for sexually assaulting, hurting, and murdering women. 

(This shouldn’t even be a point to highlight. However, two books I read this year by Indian American authors made me emphasize this point. Kaikeyi outright whitewashed Ravan’s rapes and presented him as someone who respects women. Then, recently, The Bandit Queens had a statement that Ravan was madly in love with Sita. After this level of self-proclaimed feminism, it’s a relief to read something that mentions things as they are.) 

Another aspect I like about the book is the maturity with which it deals with subjects like religion, politics, corruption, mafia, Bwood, etc. (It’s a relief to say this as a part of me was worried.) 

There’s no virtue signaling or targeting based on ideology. Things are presented as they are and used for the plot. The writer’s focus has to be plot rather than pseudo activism. The author maintains the balance throughout, making it a fairly realistic Indian police procedural (or crime thriller). 

The book deals with themes that have a great scope for graphical descriptions. While there is some description, it is not very detailed or graphic. This keeps the focus on the plot. The narration is controlled and gives enough information for the reader to imagine the rest. 

The climax is ek dum filmy, an advantage and a disadvantage. It worked well for me (mostly) as I like watching the shootout scenes in crime shows. However, for a book, the scenes feel a little too filmy. It was fun to imagine one of my favorite small-screen actors in the lead role. ;) 

What Could Have Been Better for Me: 

I’m not a fan of slow-burn thrillers (a reason why I don’t enjoy noir). This one picks up pace as the story progressed, but the beginning is slow. The chapters with the killer’s POV distract the focus from the main plot. Those are necessary later on, but I feel around 5 chapters could have been removed and the information scattered into the other chapters. It would have tightened the narration. 

A couple of words have incorrect meanings or spelling, though nothing that’ll affect your reading experience. One of them irked me as a South Indian, but I can see why it had to be done. (Indian readers, you know what I’m referring to.) 

To summarize, The Blue Bar is an Indian crime thriller that presents the dark aspects of society but with a great balance and maturity. It is a desi novel I’m glad to have read (after being burnt by you-know-what), and looking forward to reading the second book in the series. 

This book is not about exotic India with snake charmers or spicy cuisine. It is not about the dirty, poor, and stereotypical India where nothing good exists. The Blue Bar is India as Indians know it. It has good, bad, and ugly. Go with the right expectations, and you’ll enjoy the book more. 

I should mention that I read the author’s Twitter thread about hateful and racist DMs she received for the book. It is saddening to see that happen, though I wonder if the reason partly lies with the book not catering to either stereotype mentioned above. 

Thank you, Damyanti Biwas, NetGalley, and Thomas & Mercer, for the eARC. 

#NetGalley #TheBlueBar 

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P.S.: I’m the co-founder and managing partner at The Hive Publishers. Damyanti has given us a wonderful foreword for our second book, Blood Runs Cold, a thriller anthology. She was our second guest at Heart2Heart with The Hive, an author-interview season hosted by my teammates. 

However, this association doesn’t affect my review.