Book Review : A Useful Death by Sriram Chellapilla

I am thankful to WritersMelon for sending us the copy of book ‘A Useful Death’ by Sriram Chellapilla. Book Review is analytical and honest in all terms, where I present thoughts of this book. Let’s start with the cover of the book and then the plot and pace of the story.

Book Cover: Title in the plain text with white colored font with a man standing in front of big TV screens makes sure that readers get a glimpse that the plot is set with news media being one of the centric players in the story.

A Useful Death Story Plot: A girl named Priya, who was an aspiring actress and ex-university student, commits a suicide. Her death raises questions to the link up with her probable costar Anil and the enquires about her missing laptop and smartphone makes the police to think that this is more than murder. An investigation agency is called upon and Partha one of the member of the team takes the case with lot of persuasion from Anil’s film star family.

·      Partha, leads the case with conviction that Anil is innocent and then series of truth starts disclosing infront of him.

·      Will Partha make real culprit go behind the bars or does he feels the stardom pressure on his case?

·      Does a single student named Varaprasad decision to keep Priya secrets to him will land with right news channel?

Such questions will make you stick to the book for longer.

Deadly Strong Pointers

·      Each character is strongly portrayed, be it lead Partha or the victim Priya or the suspect Anil.

·      Story takes forward with a consistent pace and is powerfully supported with a great desciptions.

·      Author Sriram Chellapilla has done a commendable job with this novel, with a well-researched setup, be it film industry or University matters or the way news media works.

·      Narration and crisp dialogues makes the reader go ahead with the story from time to time.

·      Student politics and ideology makers are also detail explained with all sides of pros and cons.

Final Word: A Useful Death by Sriram Chellapilla is a great book to read with a leisure time in hand as you will ponder and imagine the film industry and Universty student politics role bit by bit. Pace of the book is above medium and you will have grip of a story at all times. This book has it all a mystery thriller has, a strong plot with powerful characters and excellent narration. 

Author has brilliantly justified title and story and showed us how people even try to gain over one's death. This is the hard truth but politics and personal interest of people clash and few innocent people have to pay for it. I rate 4.5/5 to this book for excellent execution of the plot the back story of characters and the minuest details author has carefully builded in the story.

About the Author: Sriram Chellapilla, has roots from Hyderabad and has worked in fields of Advertising, Script writing and presently teaches Screen Writing at Ramoji Academy of Film and Television.

Book Details:

Book: A Useful Death’

Author: Sriram Chellapilla
Rating : 4.5

Pages: 410

Format: Paperback

Price: 399 INR

Publishers: Westland Books

This book review is also part of Write Tribe Reading Challenge 2019, where one has to read at least 12 books in a year. This review is for month of October for the prompt - 7 - A book featuring a hobby.

@Sonal