Qatl ki paheli (कत्ल की पहेली) : Santosh Pathak

 The book under review and 1st of 2019 is Qatl ki Paheli  by Santosh Pathak (you can say the mystery of a murder). The main protagonist of the novel is Vikrant Gokhale who is on a mission for his client Sahil Bhagat but circumstances changes adversely and Sahil Bhagat lands into jail for murdering his wife as he caught on spot by police. A watertight case is registered against Sahil Bhagat and Vikrant Gokhale faces a huge and Uphill task to save his client. In this context Vikrant Gokhale comes in contact with various characters and story and Plot becomes more murkier and complex as the story progress forward. A spree of Murder happens where Murderer leaves no clues for Vikrant Gokhale. As the novel is a murder mystery so it is not appropriate for me to elaborate the story further. The story has inspector Chauhan and a lawyer Neelam Tomar who are on the side of Vikram Gokhale and have their own views about the proceedings.

The  publisher of the book is Suraj Pocket Books who has successfully presented in nice package but have some proof errors which can be avoided. 
As far as Santosh Pathak, who is author of many mystery books including Aakhri Shikar, Maut ki dastak, khatarnaak Sajish and Andekha Khatra is concerned, is successful in creating a mysterious murder mystery. The story line of Qatl ki Paheli is so complicated that in the last Vikram Gokhale is also puzzled along with inspector Chauhan to solve the issue. The author is rightly says that you cannot find out the culprit till the end of the novel because there are so many subplots and so many motives which aur intelligently interwoven to create a well knit and  interesting story.
The characterization of Vikrant Gokhale remind us private detective Sudhir Kohli of Surendra Mohan Pathak as Santosh Pathak admits himself that he is largely inspired by Surendra Mohan Pathak, the iconic great story teller of Indian Pulp Fiction. Surendra Mohan Pathak has played a great great role in refining the taste and standard of readers of Pulp Fiction based on which the writers like Chetan Bhagat, Ashwin Sanghi, Ravi Subramanian, Mukul Deva and Vish dhamija are creating new frontiers of popular or you can say Pulp Fiction. A great League of new and aspiring writers like Santosh Pathak Vikram E Diwan Kanval Sharma are taking forward  the torch lightened by the authors like Ved Prakash Sharma and Surendra Mohan Pathak.
Santosh Pathak as shown the great ability to write in detail the conversation between his characters. He could have taken care of using the Tu-Tadaak language between Vikram Gokhale and Neelam Tomar or between Vikram Gokhale and Inspector Chauhan. He can use the world Tum instead of Tu because it will lend some respectibility to the characters. 
In future the Vikram Gokhale should be either completely corrupt morally or more responsible like Sunil because in this novel he is verbally sounds like Sudhir of SMP but in the end act like Sunil where he returns the flat to it's owner. Here I believe that he should be either white or completely black as the grey shaded character will be difficult to be justified as there is an instant smooching incident between Vikram Gokhale and Meeta in laters flat. 
Although Qaitl ki Paheli is a murder mystery where we are dealing with the peoples suffering from lust and greed but author in my view should show some restrain to portray every woman as eager to oblige his private detective. Apart from that Vikram Gokhale is an enduring, courageous and fully devoted to his duty and looks more mortal then is others contemporaries in detective field.
Santosh Pathak ji will surely produce another Ace in future which will be starkly different from his previous works which we are eagerly waiting.