This spy thriller set in Sri Lanka can give you the shivers
Updated:
Updated:
March 03, 2021 11:44 IST
In his second novel ‘Yesterday’s Ghosts’, Nikhil Pradhan explores an unconventional form to tell a spy story set in war-torn Sri Lanka
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In his second novel ‘Yesterday’s Ghosts’, Nikhil Pradhan explores an unconventional form to tell a spy story set in war-torn Sri Lanka
The novel opens in a grove in Sri Lanka’s North, peopled by Tamils who for three decades fought the Sinhala-dominated government for Eelam, their own version of a homeland. In this disconcerting patch of jungle with its dapple of leaf and shade, where trees festooned with creepers block out sunny skies, lies buried a secret that men of the Black Team have carried in their hearts for 30 years. Betrayal and deceit have been fellow travellers in the lives of the team and Nikhil Pradhan probes whether their dark deeds will go to the grave with them or send them to it in
Nikhil Pradhan’s second novel,
Yesterday’s Ghosts, is a pacy thriller about four former intelligence operatives and the circumstances that bring them back together after decades of no-contact. It mixes espionage with horror in a pared-down, sparse narrative. The interrogation format is used as the primary narrative device, interspersed with short spells of omniscient narration to ground the novel better.
Pradhan’s first book,
Cold Truth, had a similar structure and his experimentation with the novel form stood out for diverting from conventional storytelling. Unfortunately, the experimental audacity of the first book becomes the second’s comfort zone.
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