Suraj Laxminarayanan’s debut novel Elephants in the Room is about ambition, fate, violence, cold-blooded murders, escapades and a sensational experience of reading a crime thriller and you certainly cannot miss a page if you begin reading it. It builds up a little slow but once it catches the momentum, you won’t be able to stop yourself from asking – so, what’s next? Elephants in the Room is a brave attempt at modern crime thriller fiction and Suraj has succeeded to a great extent. More or less, it’s like a crime movie which you can imagine happening as you read the novel.

The first thing that struck me as a reader was the characterisation in the novel. The novelist has given weird names to the characters and that gives the novel another level of encryption. It indulges the minds of the readers a little more compared to reading a fiction with proper names of the characters. Another thing that confronted me as a reader was the indefinite course of actions in the novel. I mean to say that I could not predict what might be happening the next moment in the novel. It was just that I kept reading and it kept surprising me as a reader. So, the crime thriller also has the proper surprise elements to keep the readers guessing and offering them moments of thrill and excitement.

Suraj Laxminarayanan’s debut novel also explores the depths of a plot very well. He has not only kept it limited to a particular length or breadth or even depth. He has tried to enter into the thinkings of his characters and it adds a further elaborated dimension to his novel Elephants in the Room. There are many instances which will make the readers feel something different, something we don’t often find in the fiction written today. The introduction of the different robber-gangs inside the bank, the murders, the settlements, the introduction of the cops into the scene and so on… it feels like the fiction takes shape every minute and finds another shape the next. However, the events are connected properly and the readers can surely dig for the links to the leading events in the novel so that they don’t find things weird.

There is nothing more to comment about the language used in the novel as it’s simple and rather straight. You can easily read and understand it in one go so that you find it convenient to understand. The words are all familiar and the readers will have comfort with this. Yes, the monologues are very well constructed and you also feel what the characters can feel or think what they think. It further connects the readers with this novel.

So, to conclude, Elephants in the Room is a novel for modern readers and especially the lovers of crime fiction. However, after reading this, they will certainly find something new and fresh to talk and to discuss… this is not only new but also very engaging and worth-reading! You can get a copy of Suraj Laxminarayanan’s debut novel by clicking the Amazon link below:

Elephants in the Room – buy now on Amazon India

Review by Prakash for Intellectual Reader