In my journey of searching old hard to find Hindi books and novels till now I have got to know many publications and series which are now stopped and very little known to people now a day. At the peak of its time Hindi writing used to present many diversified options to readers to enjoy. At one side we were presented with many socially themed novels written by amazing writers such as Gulshan Nand,a Gurudutt, Raj Vansh etc. then on the other side we used to get good mystery, thriller stories written by Ibne Safi [Originally in Urdu], Ved Prakash Kamboj, Om Prakash Sharma. At that time Pulp fictionhad its own big fan following. I've also reallized at that time there were many monthly magazines who used to published detective novels/stories on mothly basis, some ofthe monthly magazines which are known to me are Jasoosi Duniya, Jasoosi Fanda, Jasoosi Panja, Guptchar etc.
I short there were lots of options for Hindi reader which in my opinion we lag these days.
Now onto this book.
A few days ago i was going through my old books collection and was searching for any mystery book to read. While going through my collection i found this novel titled 'Bhayanak Daldal' written by Aarif Marhavi for Jasoosi Panja series of Star publications, Delhi.
The one thing which i experienced from this book is that don't go after the book by its cover (As i found here that the book cover had no relation with the story).
The novel follows the adventure of an Extra ordinarry detective / Secret service officer Kaisar Hayat Nikhattu a.k.a Marshal Q.
The story starts with the murder of Mr. Shamsher Singh a well respected and known man of the city under Unusual circumstances while he was receiving protection from the Secret Service department. The murder was more unusual as it was done through a blast in Mr. shamsher's room without anyone entering in the room around that time. The blast had resulted in taking away the head of the victim, making it tough for the police and Secret service to identify the identity of the victim..
The case was under Civil police jurisdiction, still a Private Detective Kaisar Hayat Nikhattu enteres the murder scene in an different getup and fake identity of higher departmental officer and tries to solve the mystery behind this murderer. Looking at the crime scene as well as various circumstances he deducts that the murder was done by someone close to Mr. shamsher. Before He or Police could find anything else victim's foreigner wife Shirle fled the scene after murdering a police officer and breaking the heavy security. She also informs the police commissioner about the true identity of Kaisar stating that he was not someone he was claiming to be. But before the civil police could do any thing Kaisar was able to get away from the Police but after coming out he finds himself in a lot of trouble with a vehicle following him and trying to kill him. He fights them and was able to catch one of the people trying to hurt him. He brings that person to the secret headquarter of Secret service.
In another place a member of the secret service named Deepak has been caught by some mysterious criminals/ Gangs who use various high tech technologies to find out about the position and information about the other members of Secret service from Deepak, who under the influence of some kind of hypnotism gives up all the information. Although he couldn't give any information about the chief of the secret service 'Marshal Q' as he didn't have much information about him.
Based on this information the Gang finds out about the secret service's headquarter and also plans to kidnap all the members of Secret Service. But Secret Service chief Marshal Q gets a snif of their planning and orders all the workers/ agents of the Secret service to change their base and place to be safer from a probable kidnapping. He also starts planning his own action against the gang.
Marshal Q informs his remaining colleagues in the secret service that he'll be taking help of Kaisar in this case. He does that as no one knew that kasiar and Marshal Q are same person and not the two different people.
In this journey Kaisar comes across a beautiful lady who offers to go on a date on their first meeting and meet him at the time of dinner, although the woman was in different getup kaisar recognized that woman as Shirley, wife of pressumely killed victim Shamsher Singh . Understanding her probable plan to kill him as well as his colleagues he plans to catch her and supporters red handed in the act. He sets up a plan by inviting all the colleagues from Secret service at hotel Air france at the set time of his date with the woman, and also changes his get up again and switches the place with a Violin player.
Suspecting that the violin player is Kaisar, Shirley and her men kidnap him with other officers and take them to thier base where by help of his intelligence and work Kaisar a.k.a. Marshal Q succeeds in not only freeing his colleagues but ends a terrorist group in the country as well as solves the mystery of Shamsher singh's mystery.
By the way at the end writer throws up a twist that was not expected, but to find that twist you'll have to read this book.
I would say the book started quite well with the interesting plot of murder of a person by a small bomb taking away his head, when no clarity was available who came in his room, but during the writing or i would say book the writer went away from this plot in an attempt to give it some what James Bond feel and didn't concentrate much on the murder solving aspect.
I guess when you have a target of giving 1-2 book each month to the publisher, gou tend to be repetitive and not develop the story to its full capacity. still a decent one. This novel came out in the series Jasoosi Fand and this is the 140th book of this series.
Still You can read it for a nostalgia feel.
My Rating: 2.5 /5
