I have read whole of Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock, his deduction method, very unique, none could match till now. People are still mad for 221 b, Baker Street, London.
Another name, Hercule Poirot of Agatha Christie, a Genius, he reads situation, he reads psychology, he reads everything. "Murder at Orient Express". A master piece. Rest I forgot. From Belgium. Having egg shaped head. Uttering "Mon ami".
Agatha's main characters "Hercule Poirot" & "Miss Marple". I could never read Miss Marple. I tried but failed, could not raise enough interest.
And now about Surender Mohan Pathak, an Indian mystery writer, writing in Hindi. I have read, not all, but some of his novels.
Pathak is very poor in weaving mystery. Very Poor. I read "धब्बा" only a few days back. Very Poor. Pathak is good at presentation, language, flow. Very good. One can learn life, many aspects of life from Pathak but not the mystery writing. To me Pathak is a good writer in a different way, one can learn a lot about relationships, role of money in the society, human psychology, and so many other aspects of life through his novels. He could have been a great social writer but he chose to be a mystery writer, who describes society a lot, so much that the mystery aspect remains very poor.
What if you go on reading a whole book and eventually come to know that someone from Mars was the murderer?
Would it be a good mystery story in which in the end the murderer is declared someone who never appeared in the whole story?
Or someone, who never did anything from which the reader could guess him/her as the criminal?
What if someone is declared a murderer in the last pages of a mystery novel on the basis of some aspects of the story which had been never mentioned earlier?
Bullshit!
Such stories are poorest murder mystery.
That is why, I am calling Pathak a poor mystery writer.
Great are the murder mysteries, in which the killer is always in front of the reader, leaving many clues. And the reader can never make any head or tail of those clues but the great detective like Sherlock or Poirot does that magic.
Voilà!
Such are the real mystery stories.
And in the end, a clarification. In Hindi, there is word jasoos (जासूस), which is used equally for people like James Bond and Sherlock Holmes.
But a secret agent or a spy and a detective are absolutely different kinda people.
James Bond is a secret agent,a spy and all the rest are detectives.
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