Book Review #22: God Is a Gamer


Name: God Is a Gamer
Author: Ravi Subramanian
No. of Pages: 310
Genre: Thriller Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Books
Price: Rs. 299/-
Published in: 2014

The blurb of the book says:
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CROSS GAMER, BANKER, POLITICIAN AND TERRORIST WITH VIRTUAL MONEY?

From the bestselling author of ‘If God Was a Banker’ comes the first ever bitcon thriller. ‘God Is a Gamer’ is a world where money means nothing, martyrs are villains. Predators are prey, assassination is taught by ancient Greeks, and nothing is as it seems.

Moving from Washington’s Congress to Delhi’s finance ministry, the beaches of Goa to the corporate boardrooms of Mumbai, this is Ravi Subramanian’s most gripping novel yet.

‘Banker by day, writer by night’—FORBES

‘Impressive entertainment value’—TIME OUT

About the author:
Ravi Subramanian, an alumnus of IIM Bangalore, has spent two decades working his way up the ladder of power in the amazingly exciting and adrenaline-pumping world of global banks in India. It is but natural that his stories are set against the backdrop of the financial services industry. In 2008, his debut novel, If God Was a Banker, won the Golden Quill Readers’ Choice Award. He won the Economist Crossword Book Award in 2012 for The Incredible Banker and the Crossword Book Award in 2013 for The Bankster. His most recent novel is Bankrupt. He lives in Mumbai with his wife, Dharini, and daughter, Anusha.

To know more about Ravi visit www.ravisubramanian.in or email him at info@ravisubramanian.in. To connect with him, log on to Facebook at www.facebook.com/authorravisubramanian or tweet to @subramanianravi.

MY THOUGHTS:
Cover: The cover is quite appealing with the title embossed in bold gold letters. Like his earlier books, the covers shows the silhouette of a man. This time he is standing and looking at the White House.

Writing: The writing is crisp engaging. Chapters are short and ranges from 2 to 4 pages.

Story: The plot is set against the banking industry. A senator, who is a close aide of the President of USA, is assassinated. A planned ATM heist loots millions from NYIB (a MNC bank) by making unauthorized transactions across Washington. Both events send the FBI on a wild goose chase, bringing them to Mumbai. Aditya and Sundeep run a banking services outsourcing company  and gaming company that is struggling to break even.  Swami, the head of NYIB’s retail business, is upset with the ongoing internal state of affairs; while NYIB’s CEO slips off a highrise building, plunging to her death. Enter Varun, part-time drug dealer and fulltime genius. He turns around the gaming company before disaster strikes. The beautiful Tanya falls for Varun. Meanwhile, the investigators plunge headlong into the shady world of bitcoins and the Dark Net, websites that only exist for illegal transactions.

The author has brought together things from the present world: facebook, online games, virtual money, cyber crime, plastic money and so on. So it was interesting to know how things work in these aspects.

Although I started reading the book in snippets, it was actually a single day I took to complete it. It is an engrossing read and did not lag at any point of time. I felt as if I were reading the work of an international thriller writer. I only wish that the motive of the actions was more solid and credible.

I give "God Is a Gamer" 4 stars on a scale of 5.

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