“One Arranged Murder,” a book by Chetan Bhagat, a writer who knows the likings of the young generation very well, and a book is published in ‘2020. It is a murder mystery with love, family, and relationship drama. From the last two books, the writer has changed the writing style of college life, love story, friendship to a murder mystery.
Keshav, and Saurabh software professional cum detective guys, take forward their characters from the last book, The Girl in Room 105 (2018). Both works in the Cybersafe software company parallelly run “Z” detective agency. Saurabh loves eating and is always hungry.
In this book, Saurabh is a victim, and the story revolves around him and Keshav. Keshav helps him to solve the case.
Saurabh doesn’t like the flirty and hook-up nature of Keshav. Keshav arrogantly says bad words for his fiancee in her presence, so they fought over it and went to split and live in separate apartments.
Saurabh is engaged to Porsche Dealer Ramesh’s daughter and Eato food delivery apps partner, fat girl Prerna. They love each other.
She keeps Karwachauth fast for him, and at night when she is waiting for him on her bungalow’s terrace, she falls from there and dies. Everybody thinks she fainted due to fast and fell. So it’s an accident. Her family accepts this as an accident, but he doesn’t believe this. Because he was chatting with her and she was excited.
Prerna’s neighbor tells Keshav and him, she heard a fighting noise from the terrace before the accident. He was also chatting with her and knew she was excited about fast. He and Keshav find it suspicious after this and decide to investigate.
Police officer Rana helps them to involve in an investigation with the police officer Singh, who is investigating the case. Ramesh opposes investigation and requests closure. And for this, he bribes the police officers. After this, and looking at Singh’s interest, Keshav and Saurabh start their investigation. After studying the alibi and investigation of Bindu, Anjali, Prerana’s parents, maid, and others. They suspect three people. The first is Neeraj, Prerna’s ex-boyfriend and a colleague in the bank. He was present near her bungalow at the time of the accident. The second is her business partner and friend Namrata. She helps their fathers from Eato accounts. And, the last one is Aditya, Prerna’s uncle. He is a financially unstable and drug addict struggling singer.
After investigation and inquiry, Keshav knows Neeraj nd and Namrata are innocents. In Adi’s room, they find Prerana’s engagement ring. But, before cross-questioning him, he dies of a drug overdose.
Again, Ramesh wants to close the case without any investigation and save the prestige. Then he became the prime suspect for Saurabh and Keshav. They investigate him with the help of Bindu, Prerana’s aunt, and Anjali, Prerana’s cousin from America.
During this investigation, Keshav and Anjali come close and start loving each other. She reveals her family secrets to him and spends more time with him. Finally, Keshav finds proof against Ramesh, and he asks the police to arrest him from his showroom. News spread everywhere soon. Keshav and Anjali keep meeting and building relationships.
A few days later, Keshav reveals the big secret of the Malhotra family. It was known to 3-4 people only. He also reveals Anjali and Adi’s secrets. He presents proof, the motto behind murders, and the way of murders. It turns the case upside down and faceoff the killer. Ramesh gets acquitted, and Keshav apologizes to him. He also clears the reason behind this drama. After knowing the killer, and motto the family becomes in shock. There are many twists and turn during investigations and inquiries.
Who is the killer? What is the killer’s motto? How killer murder and proves fake alibi? What is Malhotra’s big secret? All this is good to read in a book.
Well written, and suspense stays alive still ends. Good to read it if suspense-crime-investigation is your genre. 3/5*
Chetan Nikam 