Dan Brown - What's the first thing that comes into your mind when you hear his name? The Da Vinci Code? Angels & Demons? Robert Langdon? Tom Hanks ? Controversies? You will be having your own perspective on him regardless of the 'n' and 'n+1' number of controversies that always surrounds him whenever his new book is published. However, no one can deny the indubitable fact that all his works are based on extensive research to give that perfect combination of fact and fiction to his fans. Be it the mind-numbing techno thriller Digital Fortress or the scientific thriller Deception Point to the fast and furiously paced Angels & Demons or the chock-full of controversy loaded The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown ensured that his novels had a solid foundation of exhaustive ground work and exploration on the core theme of his books before it is written.
Much like Dan Brown, Ashwin Sanghi had also made enormous study and thorough investigation of facts for his latest novel - The Krishna Key. Anagrams, numerous places from Dwarka to Himalayas, treasure hunt sort of expeditions, a murder in the beginning and a historian to decode the clues left behind, The Krishna Key revealed and reminded of Dan Brown's style of works instead of the author's unique style. However, the level of detail which Ashwin Sanghi had covered in the book will surely make everyone to be proud of our ancient Indian culture and our forefathers - the knowledge they possessed in their arsenal and the science behind their actions to prove that they did not do things randomly without observations and justifications. Unfortunately, as you are already familiar with Dan Brown, The Krishna Key was more like a encyclopaedic bombardment of information from his study on various books rather than a work of fiction. In fact, there are 2 parallel stories that runs throughout the novel - Mahabharata written in his own words and the present day cat and mouse story where the hunter becomes hunted and the hunted becomes the hunter.
The characters walk , ride , run , climb, swim , get buried etc. However, you do not get to be under the character's skin to feel their emotions. It's like "yeah..they are doing...so, what". You don't actually empathise with any of the character including the person who falsely thinks himself to be the next Kalki Avatar or the historian Ravi Saini making trips to most of the corners of India.
The climax was very predictable but the only saving grace was that it did not drag for a long time. The epilogue was very much reminiscent of Deception Point's final conclusion.
Bottomline: The Krishna Key is a very honest and straight forward herculean attempt to showcase India's advanced scientific contribution of the ancient days with a touch of fiction. But since, you are conversant with Dan Brown's works, the Krishna Key seemed more like finding new facts about our ancestors and temples rather than the storyline or the style of writing
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