Conspiracy Fiction, as a genre of books were always popular with voracious readers of books and Dan Brown with his (in)famous Da Vinci Code ensured that this genre received a crazy boost in terms of the interest generated and readership volumes. In recent times, some good books in this genre set in an Indian context have made their way to bookstores and “The Krishna Key” by Ashwin Sanghi is one of them. Regular readers of this blog would have surely read my review of “Chanakya’s Chant” and would have realized that I have somewhat become a fan of this particular author and his style of story-telling. To put it mildly, Ashwin Sanghi reminds me a lot of Michael Crichton where solid research backed by a wonderful reimagining of known facts and theories ensured awesome books. And The Krishna Key does not disappoint readers, at least for most part…
The book deals with how Prof. Ravi Mohan Saini, an avid historian gets embroiled in a series of murders and in the process of uncovering the truth ends up in digging more than just the truth about the murders. His travels take him in search of the legendary buried city of Dwaraka, to the demolished temples of Somnathpur, to the archaeological digs of Kalibangan, to the historic site of the Mahabharatha war at Kurukshetra, to Mount Kailas and also to the Taj Mahal. And if just the mention of these places doesn’t make you want to read the book, the author goes on to describe the history of all of these places and associated characters in history in such great detail that anybody who is interested in the history of India, the Mahabharatha, and various other associated people and events simply have no choice but to pick up this book and read it as soon as they possibly can.
Coupled with the Professor’s obsession with Krishna’s history and his genuine belief that there was more to this particular mythological god than we already know, ensure that almost the entire Mahabharatha is retold as part of this book. The author cleverly inserts his own abridged version of the Mahabharatha as a couple of paragraphs at the beginning of every new chapter in the contemporary tale of how Prof. Saini is on the run from the police.
A very quick paced book, this is just like Ashwin Sanghi’s other books, an unputdownable one which all regular readers will strive and complete in one sitting itself, if possible 🙂
A good read, and I won’t be too surprised if it is made into a movie or a TV series sometime in my lifetime.
One small disclaimer though, the author does take quite a few liberties with historical facts and personalities. Readers are advised not take the book too seriously and start questioning their basic beliefs and things like that as that might just lead to too much of anxiety about all the knowledge that we have of these topics. This book is from the conspiracy fiction genre and should be treated as such.
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| Name | The Krishna Key |
| Author/s | Ashwin Sanghi |
| Publisher | Westland India |
| Year published | 2012 |
| ISBN 13 | 9789381626689 |
| Goodreads link | Link |
| Flipkart link | Link |
| Amazon link | Link |
Mahabore's Mumblings 
i loved the book…the best part was it related Mahabharata too …i have become a big fan of Ashwin Sanghi..though i haven’t read any of Michel Crichton.. i am reading chanakya’s chant now, it’s amazing too…
@Pratikshya, I loved Chanakya’s Chant and the Krishna Key but hated his first book, The Rozabal Line that I couldn’t even bring myself to finish it at all
[…] for almost over six odd months now. It was around that time that Ashwin Sanghi of The Krishna Key [Link to my review] and Chanakya’s Chant [Link to my review] fame announced that he was collaborating with James […]
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