[This review was published in the Daily Observer, a leading English daily in Bangladesh back in 2014-15.]
Mohammad Nazim Uddin’s first novel Nemesis has shaken the concept of conventional thrillers first ever in Bangla literature.
The most remarkable shortcomings of country’s present detective trend are firstly, the authors are very much influenced by the foreign writers that a reader faces hardship to adopt them in known socio economic context.
Secondly, the antagonist, who stands against the hero, is top to bottom a ‘villain’ himself, as if it is a must for the storyline.
Nazim has broken this decade long gridlock through his creation of Zefri Beg, an FBI certified homicide specialist, in his unpretentious heroic approach and the antagonist ‘Bastard’, a criminal mastermind of outstanding conscience - that makes a reader to suffer from an intellectual masochistic indecisiveness that whom should s/he define as the central character.
Unlikely Beg is a non smoker, homesick and a teetotaller that makes him stand out from the rough and tough adult detective hero.
The novel begins with the murder of a prolific author Mr Rehman, who was living in a humiliating condition, as his open heart surgery forced him to lead a life of handicapped. His second wife Barsha, who was his daughter’s friend used to live with him but enjoying sexual life with a young director. The night Rehman was murdered his wife was sharing bed with her boyfriend just beside his bedroom as usual. The murder scene deserves pity for this old man through Nazim’s subtle description. But when Rehman’s perverted life of a paedophile reveals in course of the story, attentive readers must pause for a while, it may be defined as the Nazim Code.
Nazim is famous for his translations of Dan Brown’s bestsellers, so a reader can expect a strong influence of Brown in his thriller. Nevertheless when readers will start to read it then unexpectedly the expectation will be minimized, that is another twist waiting.
Falling under the genre of ‘adult novel’- sharp turns in the storyline, post-modern complexity of the moral conscience, the aesthetic depiction of erotic events, let Nemesis stand out from so called ‘hot cakes’ and legible for the teenager to adult readers. As well as the book cover and illustrations are excellently fit for the story that reminds Nazim’s deep influence of 80s classic thrillers.
However, the author should have been more careful about spelling mistakes that interrupts readers from a test of smooth reading. Publishers could have provided quality paper and better binding, even some copies got one or two pages detached or curled inside.
Despite these common faults Mohammad Nazim Uddin’s Nemesis stands ordinarily extraordinary as the novel is not merely a traditional detective one rather a philosophic attempt that raises question in readers’ mind, by penetrating their thinking, where a reader himself plays a role of a detective hero into his or her own mind.
Nemesis is the Greek goddess of revolt, interestingly the title of the novel itself is symbolising the silent revolt against traditional style and thinking level of crime writing.
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