All publications of Rajdip Das . कोलकाता , भारत

BOOK REVIEW by RAJDIP DAS.

TITLE: MURDER OF A LADY: A SCOTTISH MYSTERY

SERIES: DR. HAILEY

AUTHOR: ANTHONY WYNNE

GENRE: Crime fiction / Mystery

PUBLISHER: Niyogi Books India

RELEASE DATE: October 10th 2017

Introduction:

I am very fond of murder mysteries.

The blurb and book cover of this book instantly arouses my interest.

This book comes as a review copy from the publisher so I would like to give a huge thanks to them.

This is a classic book which is never reprinted after 1931 and after reading it, I am still thinking about the reason.

Anthony Wynn has written some of the great crime fiction and this is book 12 of Dr. Hailey series.

So let’s know what is behind the book.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dr Hailey is on a visit to the Scottish Highlands with his friend Colonel John MacCallien when the local Prosecutor Fiscal arrives late one night reporting that a woman was found murdered in a locked room at Duchlan Castle.

The deceased is Duchlan's laird's sister Mary McGregor, but there is no murder weapon and no sign of how the assassin got in and out of the room.

The only hint is a tiny silver fish scale on the victim,

a hint that inevitably leads the terrified locals to assume the murder is the work of supernatural

beings known as 'swimmers' who reside in the nearby lake.

I thought the characters / suspects of the novel were not given enough focus in the book. I don't have any such concerns at all in Murder of A Lady. Anthony Wynne fleshes out his characters to vibrant perfection, bringing their aspirations and problems to light, enough to make me either bitterly loathe them or take great care of them and also worry and fear as the noose tightened around their necks.

I was certainly at the edge of my seat at the end, wondering how Hailey was going to solve this mystery and save the day!

A lot of focus is also paid to the murder victim's personality a la Agatha Christie, as Hailey and her co-workers sought

to grasp who she was and find answers as to how and why she was murdered.

The "swimmers' supernatural dimension brought to the tale a touch of spookiness and melodrama.

Wynne paints a romantic view of the Scottish Highlands next to a Loch Ness-esque lake with the old Duchlan castle.

It was an ideal setting for, well, a lady's murder! And as the bodies started to stack up, I could sense the tension in the characters as they walked around the castle grounds, looking over their shoulder, wondering if they were going to be next!

I also really enjoyed the Scottish dimension to the book with the continuing rivalry between the Highlanders and the Lowlanders, the Duchlan family's eccentricity and the local people's fierce loyalties and superstitions.

All in all, a very good book and one that comes highly recommended by me.

I look forward to reading more of Dr Hailey's books by Anthony Wynne!

OIL STOCK & SHARES STUDY AND COMPARISON:

BY: RAJDIP DAS

The price of India's Oil shares is compared to several other Indian National Oil agencies.

Here the Oil shares are depicted in 'Candle-Stick Bar Graph,' while other agencies are depicted in a simple line graph that differentiates between them in different colors.

The following color schemes:

GREEN: Hindustan Oil Exploration Company Ltd.

NSE: HINDOILEXP

YELLOW: Indian Oil Corporation Ltd.

NSE: IOC

PINK: Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Limited.

NSE: ONGC

RED: Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd.

NSE: BPCL

VIOLET: Selan Exploration Technology Ltd.

NSE: SELAN

The graph here offers a rough overview of the downturn and the bearish trend of stock prices during this year.

One can clearly see the decline in prices around the world which is directly proportional to the current lockdown.

The Blue Horizontal line (i.e., dated: 20 FEB 2020) suggests price decline and during this period also the cases of Covid-19 were growing in India.

The second Red Horizontal line (i.e., dated: 24 MARCH 2020) represents this year's lowest price point and this is also related to the pandemic.

Here on this day Indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, declared lockdown as well.

So in conclusion, the lockdown has had a drastic effect on stock prices.

And this study is just to demonstrate the existing Oil price shares and stocks in India.