The Cabinet Conspiracy | A Thriller By Jigs Ashar | Book Review

Do you love reading political thrillers?

We do.

As India (that is Bharat) is buckling up for the nationwide elections, talking about political thrillers would be even more relevant these days, right?

So, we thought to share with you our views and reviews for a thriller with the flavor of patriotism.

We got a chance to read The Cabinet Conspiracy that comes with the taglines like A political thriller and A suspense novel weaving true events with a twist. It is penned by Jignesh Ashar (he prefer writing his name as Jigs Ashar).

This is the first solo book penned by Jigs. Earlier he gave two thrillers under the patronage of the famous author Ravi Subramanian. They are:

• A Brutal Hand
• Insomnia

As we got a chance to read them both, we were very sure that we will have a fantastic reading experience with The Cabinet Conspiracy as well. So, did we get what we’ve expected from it? Well, the short answer is – yes.

Book Cover:

As, it is natural for us all to be attracted towards a beauty, a book with eye-caching cover surely attracts more potential readers and buyers towards it. Of course, we should not judge a book by its cover. But, at the same time we cannot ignore its influence on a remarkable number of purchase and/or read decisions. So, let us take a look at the cover page of The Cabinet Conspiracy .

As you can see, the book is armed with an attractive cover page.

The dark cherry red background is eye catching. The monument you see in the background gives you an ample idea for your imagination, and you will surely conclude what it is. Rather than showing the Indian flag, the designer shows yellow stars in the top area giving you idea about more than one countries involved in this conspiracy. The two bullet holes reflects the murders happened in the book. A very thoughtful cover page where you can surely identify the primary countries involved in this fictional conspiracy.

I like the cover page.

Storyline:

Now let us take a bird’s eye view of the book plot.

Mahendra Doshi, the Prime Minister of India, is a very hardworking and no-nonsense person. At the age of more than 70 years, he works relentlessly. His passion and love for his motherland is quite evident. Most of his days average in around 18 hours of working without any weekly off or holidays. No doubt, he is considered as one of the most prominent and impactful leader around the world.

He and his core team visits a foreign country to attend an International summit. Some of these summits provides a good platform for the global tasks, trade, policies and decisions and amicability amongst the countries; officially. Often, powerful countries forcefully get the things implemented according to their agenda. Some meetings are not more than the gossips. And, some of the meetings are really useful. It is all about geopolitics and showing you power-presence also.

China is willing to get a green signal from all the countries around the world for the trade route they are planning that cover many countries. India is one of the strong opposition they will face. The president of PRC meets PM India personally to ask for the support China’s proposal.

After the meeting, PM Doshi announces something important to his core team and the team is shocked. Well, he is planning to get retirement from the active political life! He also directs the team towards the potential leader and his team who can be his successors.

The serpent, is meeting various anti-social forces around the countries to make plan and execute a conspiracy that will shook the world, effectively. All his meetings are fruitful and it seems he is on the right track.

What is the conspiracy and how will it impact India (that is Bharat), the biggest democracy of the world? Why PM Doshi is planning to take a retirement in a kind of all-of-a-sudden manner? Will his party and/or country is ready for the same? Who is the potential successor he is thinking of? Will this potential success face threats from within the country? From other political parties? From his own party?

So many questions, right? Well, you need to read the book get your answers. And, over the course of the story you will meet with Mahendra Doshi (PM, India), The Serpent, Jayant Goswami (the Principal Secretary of the PMO, India), Lalit Mahajan, President Liu, Devika Naidu (FM, India), Sanjay Adhikari (Young CM of Maharashra), Rajan Naidu, Manjiri, Manmohan Dalvi (Adhikari’s head of security), Inspector Anant Kulkarni, Chen Jintao (Foreign minister, PRC), Dr Mehta, Navtej Singh, Faiza, Prabhat, Andrey Lugovoy, Navin Sarathi (the ATS chief), Robin Dutta (Joint Secretary, RAW), N Ranganathan, Ajit Raut, Gautam Pawar, Naimam, Nandini, Suchita, Tamas, Ryan, Omkar, Sub inspector Ashraf Siddiqui, Sub inspector Jagtap, Sub inspector Barve, Fang Tiwu, Hong Lin, amongst others.

Views and Reviews:

First thing first.

The book remains true to its genre.

It is really a fantastic political thriller where you will be able to link to the inspirational sources for respective characters/scenes/places without much effort. This contemporariness surely works in favor of the book.

Be it the character of PM Mahendra Doshi or the others, be it the name of the ruling party (Indian People’s Party), you will surely be able to link them to their real counterparts.

Of course, the legal disclaimers are there for legal reasons, but the readers can look through the stuff pretty well.

The book starts with a scene in the Prime Minister of India’s life.

After yet another eighteen- hour day, at around 2 a.m., Mahendra Doshi finally retired to his bedroom.

Do you need any explanation here?

It further elaborates it as:

Doshi had a long, hot shower– one of the few luxuries he allowed himself to indulge in– and changed into a simple cotton kurta and pajama. At seventy- three, he looked like a much younger man, thanks to the strict discipline he maintained over his diet.

And, it cements the fact that you track the “source of inspiration” for this character right :). And to make it more concrete the book also refers to the – Doshi’s ‘Come to India’ initiative – 🙂

And yes, here is one line that shows the attributes of this characters and at the same time draws our attention towards a political scenario,

‘I am seventy- three.’ ‘Exactly what I am saying– that’s young in politics.’

Also, the PM flies with minimum convoy and no reporters on official visits, he has a tight schedule, back-to-back events, and… well, all the attributes are there for you to link correctly.

And, it is not only for a single character only. Be it the young and dynamic CM of Maharashtra, the FM, the socialite, the lady working in the financial organization, party’s other workers, other countries and their political leadership, the author got the things right.

And, once a reader starts linking the fictional story and characters to their “sources”, the author consider the battle is already half-won.

For the remaining half victory, he has to weave the incidents nicely, have multiple threads of event properly and weave them ultimately in a convincing manner to take them to the conclusion point. Apart from a few incidents like the Serpent’s journey and his/her presence at various places, the author is in complete control.

There is a chance of getting “jingoism” involved in some conversations in such thriller which has a tagline “A suspense novel weaving true events with a twist” and elaborate the flavor of patriotism. The author wisely kept the things under control in that arena.

The book has layered and strong characters. To avoid spoilers I will not go into the details for all of them.

Rather talking about other cabinet members, I will like to quote a line mentioning the importance of a security person of another prominent member.

Manmohan Dalvi was Adhikari’s head of security and over the years, had become a dear friend as well. Dalvi normally accompanied Adhikari on his trips, except this time around; at Adhikari’s request, he had stayed back to watch over Manjiri and Aashi at home in Mumbai.

As I have mentioned earlier, the international events are often the playground for geopolitical games. The author mentions:

Political gossip occupied most of the conversation time, and Doshi mainly listened. He was very careful with his choice of words, not letting anything slip out that may be unworthy of his office.

A good author makes you visualize his characters by mentioning their habits etc. In this book, I found some lines like:

Anant nodded thoughtfully, rubbing his temple with his right index finger, as was his habit.

The tall, sturdy Goan cop was wearing his trademark Ray- Ban Aviators. He was never seen without his sunglasses and Anant wondered if he also slept with them on.

Sanjay Adhikari said to his wife of twenty years. Manjiri screamed in delight when she heard the news.

She walked up to the portly, middle- aged man at the counter, whose wrinkled face belied his heavily dyed black hair.

And, there are details in the scenes, where required. Eg:

The woman in the burqa walked out of Thane station and patiently waited in the line for auto- rikshaws. She noticed that she was number eleven in the queue. Medusa, or M, as she was known to a very select few in international circles, had a special affinity for India.

While the government’s official statement was to give the place a look of anonymity, the ATS was in the know– the government had run out of funds. It never failed to amuse Anant.

The tall, brawny policeman slammed the car door and stepped out of the damp interiors into an equally oppressive weather.

It was nearing 8 p.m. when Ashraf Siddiqui turned his bike to the left, under the JJ flyover, and made his way towards Bhendi Bazaar. The century- old area’s name was a colloquial version of “behind the bazaar”, a term used by the British to refer to the area behind Crawford Market. Bhendi Bazaar was also known as Bohri Mohalla, due to its large concentration of Dawoodi Bohra Muslims.

Chen Jintao was sweaty, despite the cold weather. He was filled with two strong emotions– anger and dread– as he paced up and down the verandah of his sprawling mansion in Chaoyang, the richest district in Beijing.

A gigantic portrait of Xi Liu, hung on the red wall directly behind Jintao’s desk, stared down menacingly at them. It never failed to intimidate Lin.

And, there are historical references to respective place(s) at various locations in the story. Eg:

The land on which the municipal hospital stood belonged to the royals of Baroda until 1950, when the BMC acquired the land and the hospital was constructed.

The author doesn’t forget to mention the necessary details about the supportive characters. Eg:

They both had lost team members to terrorism, time and again. But it wasn’t a feeling one could ever get used to.

Ajit Raut and Gautam Pawar, got down. They were Adhikari’s closest aides, and carried a robust body of work behind them.

An old friend of Anant’s, Sebastian Rego was the station- in- charge at the Panjim police station in Goa.

Sometimes you need to behave normal when the situation is critical, because that is the only thing you can do. The author writes a simple line showing urgency of situation in matter-of-fact-ly tone.

‘We may not have much time, Anant… smuggled arms don’t remain unused for long,’ Sarathi said.

Whatever we say, the love and relationships are always core part of our lives. A thriller must have the proper representation of emotions also. The author hadn’t forget to add that ingredient as well. Eg:

Three years later, he married his batchmate from IIM, Devika.

‘Nandini, are you okay? Did you take your medicines?’ Anant asked his wife of fourteen years.

For the next two hours, Ashraf saw the world through his little girl’s eyes; he saw innocence and excitement, and forgot all about the dangerous, uncertain world he lived in.

In the same regards, this line uttered to a buddy who you know is not going to survive, is written very effectively:

You have led a hero’s life, my friend, he whispered to his faithful companion.

When you know the truth, the heart-breaking truth, and you cannot do much about it, here are the feelings:

But the process of watching your loved one waste away, slowly dying right in front of your eyes, was cruel, and not something that Anant was prepared to handle.

If you love reading one-liners, you will find some in this book.

Ambition is a virtue, but not before time.

The book contains some life-lessons like:

One thing I have learned over the years is that truth, to be accepted, requires time and effort, while misinformation does not.

The author uses some interesting phrases at places like:

… grown at a meteoric rate.

All these enriches the reading experience, right? Well, we talked a lot about the prominent characters, their emotions, patriotism and other stuff. But, here is a segment I can’t miss. It talks about people who may not have higher authority but definitely are genuine and humble soul.

Anant smiled. That was one thing he admired about Ashraf; they had worked together for many years, on many cases, but he never took advantage of the familiarity. He had never sought any favours, or demanded a promotion or salary hike.

Such honest people are true gems of the society and they must be appreciated.

Of course, I have skipped majority of incidents, chases, thrilling situations,… to avoid spoilers. But I think, by now, you must have got a fair idea about the literary quality of the book and what this thriller contains for you within.

Summary:

It is a nicely written thriller with well-developed characters getting lost and found in the maze of events. Its contemporariness and absence of abusive language and adulteries at large, makes it a desired package.

ThinkerViews Rating:

Around 8 stars out of 10

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