Review of DNA - Dad’s Not Adopted (a novel by Shikha Kaul)

“Delve into the timeless journey that promises to keep you hooked from the beginning to the end…without a blink!”

Written on the back cover summary of this novel, the writer fulfills what promised.

A novel by Shikha Kaul, a lovely lady but a dark personality when it comes to write her first fiction thriller.

The story is about a girl of eighteen, Nisa Yuen, coming to India from Thailand claiming the top most business personality, Rishabh Shenoy, as her father. The girl is then killed which turns the doubting point towards Rishabh. Due to his obliging temperament there are many who believe and try to prove his innocence. One among these is his ex-lover and journalist Ghazal Vohara who later on teams up with a CBI officer Pranab Singhania to reveal the truth.

This is sheer thriller stuff from its first to the last page. The beginning of the novel builds up an atmosphere of crime and slowly paves the path to the entry of characters; some major, some minor.

The characters and their professions are very well studied and portrayed. The writer has smartly kept a balance between the depiction of family oriented characters and professionals who are more like a family. The novel gives an adequate space to all the characters to come forth and reveal their traits. Some characters are revealed partly during entire story while a part is dedicated to few. 

Rishabh Shenoy comes out as a very successful businessman but a fearful storm shakes him entirely as a person and as a business tycoon. He is strong as a businessman but too weak as a father, husband, son and a brother. But he remains successful in making few good friends around who can reach any extent to provide him justice.

Ghazal Vohra is a startling lady with a sharp mind. She is a successful Managing Editor of a newspaper and a lady of admiration for many. She is a faithful lover even after being left alone. Her different side is disclosed only after she befriends Pranab. He is having a strong physique. He is a man of substance and rationale. His only satisfaction lies in gaining facts and reaching the ultimate truth. He too shows his different side only after he starts knowing Ghazal.

Some other minor characters are also presented in their best form. 

This book is an interesting amalgamation of relationship and distrust, doubts and beliefs, love and separation, truth and lie, fake and genuine friends, personal and professional life, past and present, justice and prejudice. The book deals with the secrets of Shenoy family; with its bright and dark side.

 It covers a considerable amount of years, oscillating between past and present of their lives.

The setting of the novel swing from India to Thailand, from court rooms to police headquarters, from various offices to various homes. Being a thriller fiction, it passes through introduction and description of many events and places but they are so finely arranged that a reader never gets confused or lost in the middle. The foreign names might give us a twitch but if concentrated only on major and important names can do away with this hitch. 

Coming to the main essence of the book, i.e. theme let me say it crafts the suspense in the most nail biting form. Readers keep on leaping from their one suspect to the other not able to find out the culprit till the time it is revealed in the book. This is what makes the novel one of the best suspense novels I have read till date.

This book I can without any second thought recommend to everyone; to all the thriller lovers and also non-lovers. You can’t resist this I must say. 

Finally talking about the hand and mind behind this discovery Ms. Shikha Kaul, you have never given us a single hint that you can come up with such an amazing creation after your first novel “Hidden Husband”. Keep writing; keep entertaining with your pen. All the Best.

My rating 4.5/5.                                         

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