Title: Fighter Cock
Author: Sidharth Singh
Pages: 220
Price: Rs 190
Format: Paperback
Link To Purchase: Fighter Cock
Genre: Crime Fiction
Synopsis:
A desolate land.
A debauched patriarch.
An upstart in search of a reputation.
A man running away from one.
Shikargarh, central India. An untamed wilderness ruled by a dissolute raja with a passion for sex, drugs and cockfighting. The raja’s Karianath fighter cocks are the undisputed champions of the area – but their reign is challenged by the new Aseel fighters imported by Teja, his bastard son, who also schemes to usurp his position.
Into this world arrives Sheru, a brooding stranger hired to work for the raja. As Sheru negotiates this wild land, he finds himself getting pulled into a deadly vortex of events that threaten to derail his destiny. But Sheru is a dangerous man with a dark past, and when he unleashes his fury, all hell breaks loose.
My Take:
Pros:
A hero who is an outlaw and stands tall at 6 foot 4 inches… A beautiful heroine who is chastised as a witch who devours any man who has a relationship with her… A wily and crooked villain… A rustic town topped off by a fort standing in the middle of a dugout… You ask for any of these exciting things and this book has it. The book reminded me of a bollywood action movie or a curry western. The main things I found attractive while reading this book were the fight sequences which are described in great technical detail and phenomenal accuracy. The hand to hand combat between the different players using ancient martial arts also grabs your attention.
It is also very evident that the author has done a lot of research into fighter cocks. The brutal fights between different breeds of fighter cocks egged on uproariously by a drugged and drunken crowd draws a picture to the reader that is as good as watching cock fighting on a 70 mm screen. The presence of a devta who speaks English with an English accent is another added attraction. This is a neat touch and is very different from the usual devtas one comes across in books written by Indian authors. This book could easily be made into a hit Bollywood movie.
And another thing I liked was, unlike most books by Indian authors the characters in this book are grey and not black and white. The characters are drawn out well and stay etched in one’s mind for a long time. The book springs several surprises as one reads it and keeps the reader thoroughly entertained and enthralled. I liked the way the book ends too. I expected a certain ending and was happily surprised when I reached the last page of the book. Overall the book has been written after putting in a lot of thought and it can be seen that the author really understands the likes and dislikes of the audience he is targeting.
Cons:
Coming to the negative points, there were not too many. There is one major point I would like to mention though. Some books grab the reader’s attention immediately and get him/her to sit up and take notice. Some books take time to do the same. There is a threshold beyond which the reader puts down the book and quits reading it. The Fighter Cock by Sidharth Singh makes the reader wait a shade longer than necessary to get the action going. In other words it would have been better if the author had made the waiting time to kindle the reader’s interest a shade lesser.
I am saying this because in the initial stages of reading the book I put the book down quite often and was beginning to lose interest. But this fact does not detract from the overall merit of the book because once I persisted and continued reading the book, I found that it blossomed into a very interesting action thriller.
Conclusion:
A big yay! You can definitely pick this book if you like a thrilling read with a lot of fight sequences along with several surprises.
Rating:
I am going with a 4/5 for Sidharth Singh’s Fighter Cock. It is definitely a very good book in the crime fiction genre. I am deducting a point because I felt the author makes the reader wait a shade too long to pique his interest.
Rating Scale:
1 Poor
2 Fair
3 Good
4 Excellent
5 Outstanding
This book has been written as part of the Blogchatter Book Review Program