God is a Gamer by Ravi Subramanian: Book Review

Title- God is a Gamer : Is Revenge a Crime?

Author- Ravi Subramanian

Publisher- Penguin Books

Genre- Thriller

Story in a Nutshell: There is a new currency making it big in the virtual world, Bitcoins, challenging the dominance of the Dollar and paving way for boundary-less/ limitless transactions globally. This is enough to stir up things in the White House and has big guns of Visa and MasterCard worried.

In the meanwhile a senator is assassinated, his death linked to Bitcoins and Cotton Trail (an online website that sells illegal drugs and payments accepted only in bitcoins) and multiple ATMs looted in a series. Back here in India, the Chairman of a global bank jumps to her death in mysterious circumstances, the Finance Minister is left to be a suspect, Aditya Rao's gaming company suddenly turns overs when he meets his estranged son, Varun after many years, Tanya, the deceased chairman's daughter and Varun fall for each other, the phishing scandal in the bank, all of the blame falling on Swami, who has served a long time with honesty in the bank, Aditya held back by the FBI for involvement in all alleged crimes relating to Bitcoins and Cotton Trail.

My Thoughts on the book: The simultaneous happenings in the dark world of drugs, bitcoins and money and the real corporate world are enough to catch your breath. The author has come a long way from "If Goad was a Banker" and has successfully made for himself a loyal fan following. This book is beautifully researched and thought into. Revolving around Bitcoins, is it's creator, the concerns in the White House, links to terrorism, drug trafficking and the dark virtual world. The story finds it's links to India and a multinational bank, a BPO and gaming sister concern get involved, not to mention the high profile politician. This is the story of the corporate world, greed, stress and aspirations going high, passionate love story and a desire to cross all limits to attain individual goal and the series of murders and deaths. This also has the FBI and CBI coming in together to investigate a series of happenings and zeroing in on the suspects.

The key characters are Aditya Rao, owner of the BPO and gaming company, his son Varun and Varun's love interest Tanya. Other characters are nicely looped in the plot such as Tanya's mother, the Finance Minister, the Senator and other dignitaries of the White House, special detectives of FBI and the officers of CBI.

It is a fast paced thriller with multiples "now what?" in between. You will be left wondering what will happen next and the whole book but the last part cannot be easily predicted. The mention to Wikileaks in the start,  and multiple mentions to real life incidents throughout the book successfully grab the reader's attention.

My Final Take: I received a copy signed by the author himself - gesture appreciated! plus a personalized note from the Bloagadda Team. I finished this book in 2 days flat (would have done in a day if other chores and sleep were to be managed by some other soul! ;P). The intensity of the plot is such that. I totally recommend this book as a Travel Read and would like to rate this a 4/5.

P.S. : The title was sent to me by Blogadda team and my review is honest as always.

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!