Review of Bali to Bombay: a Detective's Guide

[That Reviewer]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Bali to Bombay: a Detective's Guide" by Tim Connors.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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An undercover detective explores the beauty and ugliness of India in his tour. He is fascinated by some of the activities, food, and wine. He has to deal with opposition against him amidst the glamorous and not-so-glamorous experience.

Bali to Bombay: A Detective's Guide by Tim Connors was inspiring, with an insight into Indian culinary culture and winery. A certain "chai" was mentioned frequently in the book. This chai seemed like what we may refer to as "tea," but not tea in content. I got to learn so much about Indian culture through this a-little-over-130-page book.

The descriptive technique employed by Tim Connors was terrific. The novel seemed like a poetic-prose. The use of personifications, metaphors, euphemisms, and ironies gave the book a poetic feel that would appeal to lovers of poetry. In addition to this, the author subtly used these poetic devices to induce dark humor. A good example would be: "The gearbox did a Lazarus and the bus sputtered back to life." The word coinage was another thing that fascinated me about Tim Connor's writing. An example would be: "The fullish moon transformed the pink Peaks into a white so vivid there was no need for another coat." For a moment, I wanted to term "fullish" as an error, but I got the message almost immediately.

Tim Connors showed that he has a gazillion words in his vocabulary. He didn't put much hold on everyday English words. He employed words that had me flipping through the pages of my dictionary for their meaning. This could have both positive and negative effects on a reader. For readers looking to improve their spelling prowess and vocabulary, they'll relish the opportunity this book would provide. On the flip side, readers who wouldn't appreciate the distraction of looking up words in the dictionary could find the reading strenuous.

One issue I found disturbing was the import of the subtitle to the overall plot. I couldn't make sense of how this book was a detective's guide due to the poor development of the detective aspect. If anything, it felt like I was reading just a monotonous adventure in India. I wouldn't know how a detective would benefit from this book because it focused on the tour than on the detective approach. A balance would have to be struck so that we would get a hint of India and a hint of "detectiveness." The little detective approach employed in the book was poor and drab.

The editing was okay, as there were only a few grammar errors. However, the unbalanced plot would make me rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. If you'd love to read about India, especially its culinary culture and winery, I'd recommend this book to you.

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Bali to Bombay: a Detective's Guide
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[Chinaza Nnabuenyi]

A poetic prose kind of novel sounds very interesting to me. I would like to give a chance.

[Amy Luman]

I live in a very rural community and we just got an Indian restaurant in town. I love the food and am interested in the culture. Fortunately the owner is very generous in helping me.

[Poojitha Borra]

From the title, I thought this was some kind of a mystery novel. After reading the review got to know this book is more about Indian cuisine. Interesting!

[Hyacinth Bella]

I think what makes this more interesting to me is that, as you mentioned in your review, is that not only did he mentioned the beauty in it, but also the ugliness. Because as I watch travel documentaries, tourists often only says what they find beautiful and doesn't mention anything ugly. I don't know why they do these, but maybe because they like to bait locals for them to have more views. Thank you for your great review, I will be reading this!