Book Review: The Bankster by Ravi Subrahmanian

Title: The Bankster

Author: Ravi Subrahmanian

Publisher: Rupa

Interesting Storyline. Not very thrilling, but made me curious ‘what next?’ Or else how would I have managed to read over 320 pages in one-go, in around 5 hours? This was the second time I was reading a novel related to finance. Ravi has used simple terminology, which any lay man can understand. After all, the focus was on something that was happening behind the scenes and hence, the storyline was on attempting to solve the mystery.

Now, let us talk of the story.  The novel begins with the trading of diamonds in Angola, moves to of the involvement of a man in Kerala and his stand on the Trikakulam nuclear reactor built in his area and finally, moves to a Mumbai based Great Boston Global Bank. The larger part of the story involves the Great Boston Global Bank and its employees. The trouble starts when some of the bank employees are found dead. Everyone looks at the cases as accidents, until clues begin emerging it could be otherwise.

Enter Karan Panjabi, a press reporter and an ex-GB2 banker, who puts the pieces together using his investigative mind to find the truth behind the killings and the scam.

Intially, I enjoyed reading the story related to the bank and what was happening there. The nuclear power plant seemed to be playing an out-of-the-role till I reached almost the end of the novel. The author could connect the parallel instances well into the story, and it is this part that forms the most surprising part of the story. If you have a detective mind and if you read carefully, you may be able to judge some of the people behind the scam. But, there were characters that surprised me, and kudos to the author to have kept the suspense. I couldn’t spot them until I read the entire story.

Although there is a good part of banking in the story, the author has taken care to carefully craft the story, to keep the reader hooked till the very end. This further makes sure every reader, irrespective of he is from financial or non-financial background enjoys the story. There are several sub plots. You may find them out of the storyline. However, on reading the entire story, you will understand the importance of these sub-plots.

The story will tell us how today many people take advantage of their career and go out of the way to make extra money. They don’t have feelings for family, friends or colleagues or towards their own country.

Being an ex-banker must have helped the author to a great extent to write this book and his other novels, that I believe too have stories relating to the banking sector. I can’t compare this novel with other stories from the same author as this is the first time I’m reading Ravi Subrahmanian’s book.

Finance, basically doesn’t fall in my interest, but a thriller does and it was an interesting experience to read a finance related thriller.  A definite read, if you like thrillers.

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