Sneha Pathak reviews A Will to Kill by RV Raman (published by HarperCollins India, 2019).
RV Raman’s A Will to Kill is a mystery written in the tradition of whodunnit novels, sure to remind mystery aficionados of Agatha Christie’s stories. The first book in his Harith Athreya series, consisting of four books (so far) featuring the private investigator Athreya, its opening act is set in the picturesque Nilgiri mountains. It is a closed-circle mystery which features limited characters, any of whom can be guilty.
Plot Summary and Setup
The story begins when Athreya is invited by Bhaskar Fernandes, a wheelchair-bound rich man, to his secluded property, Greybrooke Manor, set in the Nilgiri hills away from the hustle-bustle of its nearest hill station, Coonoor. The reason for this invitation? Bhaskar thinks that someone is trying to kill him. Wary after an attack on him, he has made two wills. One of them will come into effect if he dies a natural death, and the other in case his death is not due to natural causes.
The beneficiaries of his will include his son, his nephews, and his nieces, along with a few bequests to other characters, giving them all motive to get rid of Bhaskar. Athreya accepts his invitation and reaches the manor just before it is cut off from the rest of the world by a landslide. When a murder takes place after a dinner party, Athreya knows that only someone from the twelve people present at the dinner could have done the deed.
The Mystery Buildup and Character Relationships
A Will to Kill moves at a steady pace, and there is no dearth of false clues and red herrings to make the reader scuttle in various directions as she tries to find who could have done the grisly deed and why. The fact that there are rumours of the place being haunted and that several guests admit to having seen the ghost adds to the sense of menace and mystery that surrounds the place.
Add to it the fraught relationships between the various people, especially the relationship of Bhaskar with his nephews and nieces who are dependent on him for money, means that RV Raman can create a setup where the reader can ascribe motives to multiple characters. The solution to the central puzzle is well done, although it does feel that there are too many things happening in and around Greybrooke Manor that complicate matters.
The setting of A Will to Kill plays an important role in deepening the mystery, with the impenetrable fog that surrounds the manor on the day of the murder playing an important role in hiding the identity of the killer. RV Raman gives his readers beautiful descriptions of the valley, the manor, the weather, and the scenery around, and I was tempted more than once to visit the Nilgiri Hills in the course of reading the book.
There isn’t much scope for character development here, and given that there are a number of characters present, we don’t get to know any of them too well. But that is a limitation of the genre, and Raman does well to fill the novel with characters who are different enough not to get mixed up in the reader’s mind.
A bit on the HarperCollins India edition’s cover, which, I feel, doesn’t do justice to the book. The Pushkin Vertigo edition cover of A Will to Kill is much more inviting, although the manor doesn’t seem to feature prominently in either of them.
Recommended Reading: The Only Way Out Is Death by Varun Gwalani: Thriller or Post-Pandemic Fiction?
Favourite Quote from A Will to Kill by RV Raman
But there was more than enough ruddy sunlight for Athreya to marvel at the vista before him. Far below was a shallow valley that was close to a kilometre wide. Meandering leisurely across the plain of the vale was a thin stream, more like a brook. From a distance, it resembles a long grey vein.
Conclusion
If you are a fan of books in the style of Agatha Christie and Bhaskar Chattopadhyay and looking for something similar, A Will to Kill might be up your alley.
Have you read this captivating whodunnit filled with twists and turns? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
