
Name: Prisoner of Yakutsk
Author: Shreyas Bhave
No. of Pages: 288
Genre: Fiction/Historical Thriller/Mystery/Netaji
Price: Rs. 399/-
Published in: 2019
How did I get it? From the publisher.
THE BLURB SAYS:
What exactly happened to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose?
• In 1947, Mr Mrs Singh, an illustrious army couple, both veterans of the Indian National Army, are last seen in Delhi, and then never again.
• In 1949, the plane carrying the first deputy Prime Minister of India, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, mysteriously disappears for seven hours.
• In 2012, following the fall of WikiLeaks, a female hacker of the notorious X group is on the run as most wanted by everyone from Interpol to the KGB
• In 2015, the millionaire CEO of a Fortune 500 company suddenly resigns and vanishes from the public eye.
Shreyas Bhave, is an Electrical Engineer from VNIT Nagpur, and is one of India’s youngest experts on Railway Electrification PSI work. He also runs an entrepreneurial community at ourfirstmillion.org. Shreyas’ first three books, the Asoka Trilogy, was published to wide acclaim and acquired for screen adaptation. Prisoner Of Yakutsk is written as a mystery thriller with the disappearance of Subhash Chandra Bose at its core. Apart from writing, Shreyas enjoys song writing, composing music, sketching and watercolours. He plays the guitar and is fond of the blues and southern rock music. He also loves to hike up to the hill forts of Maharashtra.
MY THOUGHTS:
Many years ago, I read an article in a leading Indian national newspaper about one “Gumnami Baba”. According to one theory revolving around the mysterious death of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Netaji didn’t die in the fateful airplane crash but came back to India and spent his life as the”Gumnami Baba”. Ever since I have been intrigued by the topic. So when I was asked by the publisher to choose a book from a given list for review, I couldn’t resist picking up this title.
The author has used “fiction presented as facts” approach for writing this book. I applaud him for doing a thorough research on the controversy and especially for sharing a gist of it with the reader.
Overall, it is entertaining read and a commendable effort on the part of author to handle one of the country’s biggest controversies in a sensible and intelligent manner.