God is the Gamer is one of the most promising Indian thrillers. To everyone who aspires to be a crime thriller writer I keep telling that they should read Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. The reason for the splendid success of the said novel was not only that it had all the ingredients of a crime thriller in the right amount but also that it offered something new, untried, unattempted but definitely not undisputed - the different and hence controversial version of holy grail. With God is a Gamer our very own Ravi Subramanian has come up with a master thriller involving something new - bitcoins, the virtual currency.
The cover of the book is attractive. With a silhouette of a man facing toward the white house and a gold embossed bitcoin in the title.
The story has everything - illegitimate relations, love child, long lost relations, betrayal, revenge, office politics, money laundering and a daring theft. There are too many characters and too many locations. But Ravi has etched the characters so adroitly that you never get confused.
A senator is brutally assassinated. He is very close to the President. Even his wife is shot at. She is in coma. A CEO of a multinational bank dies after falling off from the terrace. Though it appears to be a suicide, her daughter claims it to be a murder and according to her the murderer is the finance minister who was seeing her mother. Online games also play an important part in the story. Use of social networking sites to generate sales has also been enumerated in an interesting manner.
The writing style of Ravi is simple, lucid and yet racy. He has avoided unnecessary descriptions and thereby maintained the pace necessary for a thriller like this. There are many technical glitches involved in the story. However, Ravi has taken care to explain it thereby ensuring that those who are unaware of the technical details do not miss out on the story. The explanation meshes up with the story very well. It does not come up in patches and forms a part of the narrative.
The novel for the innovative elements in the story is an interesting read. There are many parallel tracks. However, none of them drift us away from the story and meet at some junction. The initial few pages build the plot and leave the reader thrilled and intrigued. As the reader is expecting to read a saucy thriller, the book takes a few twists and turns, which by now the reader had anticipated. Hence, the book drags a little in the middle. But picks up in the end. Wished the writer had written the middle part exactly opposite of what readers had expected.
In my opinion the following line at page 236 in the novel is grammatically incorrect.
"Three of his neighbours, who has seen the ghastly attack, went along with him and signed off as witnesses."
The blurb claims that assassination is taught by the ancient Greeks. But the whole Socrates theory is not interesting, moreover unrelated. The blurb also says that God is a Gamer is a world where money means nothing. If so was the case, what was the need to have the largest ATM heist which occupies the most part of the book? There is no answer to this question. However, God is a Gamer will definitely not disappoint you. It will entertain you and also introduce you to bitcoins, which definitely is the future currency.