Book Review: The Unexpected Trail by Nisha B Thakur

The Unexpected Trail by Nisha B Thakur is a fabulous book on shades of relationships, love, family bonding and finally a murder mystery also. The story is staged against the cosmopolitan culture of Mumbai. Raj and Tanvi meet each other in one company. However, Raj’s duration in that company was short due to hostile nature of Neha, Tanvi’s friend.

Anyway, Raj moves on to a rival company but keeps in touch with Tanvi. Neha and Ganga Tai, maid of Tanvi who acts like a mother, don’t like Raj. Tanvi could not resist going away from Raj. However, as the story reaches mid crises, it comes out that both are in love but not blind for each other.

Raj and Tanvi are one part of the story along with auxiliary characters like Neha, Adi, Yash, and Ganga Tai. The other part is subtle, it’s about Soma and Deven and their son Neil. Soma is a famous Bollywood actress with no bonding with her husband Deven. They live apart, but Deven is sad and depressed.

The Soma angle resurfaces in the story in the end to put a twisting and unexpected trail in the story. The title is apt because Tanvi is dragged for no reason in a murder case. However, the dead person was Deven found in her kitchen.

Inspector Yash is also a dashing personality after Raj. The trial for murder takes each character into unexpected misery. But remember, where there is love sizzling, family issues arise –revenge is just round the corner.

The plot is nicely layered, with no confusion of characters. The labyrinth of crimes is partly solved by Raj. However, dark secrets of many characters didn’t surface at the trial room. Silently characters were trying to outpace one another, even though they were in love. But moral of the story is that one should not love blindly. Even in love, there has to be space for rationality and logical thinking.

Raj and Tanvi are ambitious, looked made for each other, yet they differ on many things. And Ganga Tai wanted to cash on that opportunity. She was hostile and her chemistry with Raj was hilarious. The novel is sarcastic, witty, and fun to read. Nisha’s way of expressing inner feelings is at par with her narrative skills. This novel is more than a romantic thriller and crime suspense. It clubs many aspects into one to make it a true thriller. I loved it any day. I recommend this novel from the bottom of my heart!

If you liked the review and found the novel fascinating, do buy it from Amazon Kindle.