Saturday, July 21, 2007

Grandmaster by Warren Murphy and Molly Cochran


My Rating: 7/10

I don’t know why I liked this book, may be because of my love for mystery or magic…I really don’t know.
Let me first give you an excerpt of the story, and then you can decide yourself!

Here is the outline from book jacket cover…

Grandmaster is a tale of spymasters and assassins, murder and intrigue, played against a background of far eastern mysticism from Moscow to Washington to India!

Two men, Justin Gilead and Alexander Zharkov, driven by powerful forces that they can neither understand nor deny- driven to fight each other in a battle for power that only one can win.

Gilead, a magnificent athlete, an American, a genius and s spy. Zharkov, a master strategist, head of the feared secret service agency Nichevo, a determined, ambitious man. They first meet as ten-year old chess prodigies- both lonely, both meaning to win. Both wearing the symbol of the gold coiled serpent. They know the uses of pleasure, the secrets of pain, the impact of evil turned upon itself. They understand the deadly forces that grip the world in swift violence, sudden death. But only one man may be the grandmaster.

What it does not mention in the jacket cover is that these two are the symbols of good and evil in this world. Justin is the ‘Patanjali’ or reincarnation of Brahma!!! He is also called ‘the wearer of the blue hat’ and has a coiled snake as holy symbol! Does it ring a bell? There‘s more to come…Some saints fetch him from America and take him to Rashimpur, where there is a ‘tree of Thousand Wisdoms’ and he receives his god-training there: He learns to walk on fire or water, to be inside water without breathing, yoga etc etc..

And on the other side, there is a ‘wearer of black hat’, Zharkov. Off course, he is evil. He also receives his training but from another goddess: Varja who is evil incarnate. By now I think you must have understood the concoction: the author has taken Hindu Mythology, the story of Gods (‘dev’) and ‘danav’ , added the creation of the earth by Brahma, the snake being symbol of Shiva and further mixed it with the modern world. And voila! You got a wonderful, magical story!!

It is really fun to read the story, because it is like reading our mythological stories mixed with modernity. Surprisingly, the book has won the ‘Edgar award’ and has sold more than fifty million copies around the world. So this proves that there are readers like me who like this strange concoction!!

You can buy the book here. Click here to know more about the author.

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