Mythology and thriller when put together make for an interesting read. However, I have rarely seen Indian authors delving into this genre. Writing a thriller set agaist the backdrop of Indian mythology is no mean task. It takes a lot of research and understanding of the subject before finally writing the story. A big applause to Ashwin Sanghi for not being one of those authors who are only comfortable in the tried-and-tested genres, specially the very similar coming-of-the-age stories with sachharine sweet happy endings.
Ashwin Sanghi must have read Dan Brown’s ‘Angels and Demons’ and ‘The Da Vinci Code’ numerous times as his book ‘The Krishna Key’ resembles them to a great extent. Be it the plot or the writing style, one cannot miss the similarities of the book with those of Dan Brown’s bestsellers. The book deals with the tenth avatar of Vishnu, Kalki. The story recounts the gruesome serial killing done by a man who considers himself as the Kalki avatar. The first of his victims was Prof. Anil Varshney, a noted historian and it was his friend Ravi Mohan Saini, another historian of repute who was wrongly charged for the murder. Saini with the help of his student and her father, follows a thrilling journey in order to prove his innocence.
The fascinating part of the story is how the tale of Krishna and the story are interwoven. Each chapter starts with snippets from the Mahabharata or more specifically about the life of Krishna. Though the idea of creating a conspiracy theory story based on Krishna is extremely noble and enticing, however in some of the chapters the connection between the two are not explicit.