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In her list of acknowledgements, Rasleen Syal mentions Agatha Christie, whom she calls her guru and inspiration. As we glide through her book Happily Murdered`85. falling in the genre of crime fiction, it becomes clear that it was not for nothing that she named Christie at the very beginning.
The good part is that she has picked up a pattern that works very well for this type of story-telling. The story opens with Gulab Sarin's observations, who is the woman murdered on the night of her wedding. This sets the pace of the book which time and again shows its ability to surprise the reader by its revelations. There's a certain sense of underlying secrets and a feeling of "something more to it" as each chapter reveals a new side to the characters, their secrets and the motivations that drive them. Gulab is married to Siddharth, who belongs to the influential Mehta family of Ratnagiri. He is a typical Casanova who is unable to live up to his relationship commitments. He, therefore, becomes the central character of the entangled love affairs, including that with Sara Dulla, a member of the royal family of Ratnagiri who lives with her over-affectionate twin brother Ned. What follows is a murder and the consequential display of greed, insensitivity, egoistic attitudes, unflinching love, blackmail and an attempt to save the family name by shifting the blame to the other family. All this makes for attention-grabbing twists in the tale and ensure that each of the characters remains as much of a suspect as the other. After all, they all have the "motive, means and opportunity" to carry out the crime. Other suspects include Siddharth's two brothers, his brother's wife, his father, mother, a maidservant and even the grandmother to a certain extent. The narration also becomes interesting because one gets involved in the emotional upheavals of the characters as well. They evoke sympathy to a certain extent through their pain and anguish and the reader is tempted to switch loyalties with each new insight. The writer exhibits control over her writing in terms of creating suspense. One also likes the switching to the present tense while evoking emotional scenes to create a sense of immediacy and connection. For example, the way Gulab mentions her first meeting with Siddharth on page 40. The ending of the story and revelation of the truth comes across as an attempt by the writer to introduce an unbelievable twist to the story. However, the problem is that it remains just that - unbelievable. This is also the case when she abruptly makes the two main characters leave their fianc`E9es and get engaged to each other. What appears a little out of place is that the characters turn into mini-detectives themselves looking for clues and tampering with proofs. That too, in case of no small a crime but murderwhile the government-law enforcement agency is shown to be ineffective. There are missing words and errors like on page 38: "It was not long before my father tired of her". More surprising is a line like this on page 114: "Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye," which immediately reminds us of the famous line written by Saint-Exup`E9ry in The Little Prince, "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye". Credit must be given to the writer for attempting an entertaining book to keep the reader engrossed. This reflects in the title of the book itself which has been given thoughtfully. Overall, it is a good companion on a long journey.
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In terms of structure,
she follows Christie's style of storytelling. This includes a murder,
multiple suspects, with each having a motive to commit the crime and
the story ending with someone gathering all characters at one place to
logically conclude the identification of the criminal.