This is an engrossing mystery set in Mumbai, where the policeman Arnav becomes involved in investigating a series of gruesome and not always recent murders of women. Told through several points of view, the novel explores Arnav's efforts to uncover the killer while navigating official roadblocks, his pleasant but perhaps not ideal relationship with a successful young professional woman, and his fears about a lost love named Tara who mysteriously disappeared years ago. As a frequent mystery reader, I very much enjoyed this gritty yet richly evoked tale set in a country I have yet to visit.

I received an advance copy of this novel and am pleased to provide my honest opinion of a book that will fascinate many mystery fans around the world.

This book follows a serial killer with a taste for cutting up women's bodies and the policeman who is trying to find him. A Mumbai police procedural will always spend almost as much time dealing with police corruption as with trying to find the bad guy. This one follows that model. It's a slow start. The POV of multiple characters takes a while to bed in. And there are some interesting questions around whether we should feel sympathy for an evil person who was once a victim themself.

3.5 stars. Thanks to NetGalley for an e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a perfectly nice story about recently divorced parents of 2 adult children who are experiencing their own personal crises. Some hijinks ensue when they all gather for a first birthday party but ultimately everyone will be okay.

I liked the multiple POVs and enjoyed the 60 something year old man’s introduction to the world of online dating.

This one definitely took some time to get into, but it was worth it. I was hooked with the first few scenes, but then felt the pace slow a little through introductions of characters and the relationships. However, once the action picked up it was hard to put down - I really enjoyed the book! Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC giveaway!

I love how the setting was in Mumbai! The whole plot was dark and gritty which kept me engaged the whole time.

Biswas is very good at setting the scene as I could clearly imagine what Mumbai was like based off how Biswas described the atmosphere and feel of such a busy city.

The plot was very clever and I thought I had guessed it right the first time but there were some surprising twists in there that made me go “Wait, what just happened?”

This was a quick read and I will definitely keep a lookout for books from Biswas from now on. Thank you Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for the arc.

Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput, who is more concerned with following cases where they lead than pandering to political demands, arrives at a macabre crime scene. Women’s dismembered bodies—missing their heads and hands—have been found in shallow graves along with blue sequins near the bodies. Because the land was recently purchased for development, higher ups in the police department have instructed Rajput and his team to make quick work of their investigation.

Thirteen years earlier, Rajput’s lover, dancer Tara Mondal, had been hired to wear a blue sequined sari, go to the train station, and, after receiving a phone call, make it to the exit in three minutes. No one saw her after that night. Her disappearance has haunted Rajput, and he both hopes and fears finding Tara in one of the graves. His efforts are stymied by the roadblocks his superiors—and corrupt officers working for gangs—place in front of him, but he is determined to do whatever it takes, even disobey orders, to learn the truth.

THE BLUE BAR, the first book in the Blue Mumbai series, offers an incredible portrait of the daily work of the police force in India, along with its challenges and rewards. Even though I’ve read other mysteries set in India before, I learned more about the procedures of criminal investigations through this one than the others combined. It vividly depicts the neighborhoods of the dance halls and the areas where the bodies are found, and the descriptions of the food stalls on the streets made me hungry.

I was pretty surprised by the resolution to the mystery, and I was definitely taken aback by the grittiness of the novel and the willingness of Biswas to give an unsanitized ending—which made it that much more powerful and memorable.

If you like mysteries, particularly ones set in other countries or with a strong sense of place, I recommend THE BLUE BAR.

On the dark streets of Mumbai, the paths of a missing dancer, a serial killer, and an inspector with a haunted past converge in an evocative thriller about lost love and murderous obsession. What an amazing story! This is one of the rare books that I really could not put down. So well written, interesting characters and some of the best dialog I’ve read in a while. I highly recommend this book! Thank you NetGalley for the advanced readers copy for review.

We know I only read a handful of mystery/thrillers each year, and this was a chilling one!

The Blue Bar has 3 POV characters. Tara, a bar dancer returning to Mumbai after leaving for 13 years. Her former lover, Arnav Rajput, a police officer investigating a serial killer. And last, the serial killer himself.

While I enjoyed this book overall, it was a little bit of a tricky read for me. There were two names in particular that were too similar which led to some confusion on my part.

If you’re in the mood for something ominous with just a sprinkling of romance, I’d recommend The Blue Bar!

Thank you to @netgalley and @damyantig for the review copy in exchange for an honest review, all thoughts are my own.

This book reminded me why I love to read. Aside from some personal feelings about certain characters' reactions, I was never bored, always captivated. The characters were very interesting, and the details were magnificent! The time that went into creating and describing the setting (my favorite part of the book was the choice of setting) was well worth it! I consider this book a Master Class in sentence building and structure as well as the proper use of punctuation and such. The details often took my breath away. The ending was not at all what I expected, but I have no real complaints about anything. This book should be hailed as the gem it is. This author is certainly going to the top of my favorites' list.

A serial killer on the loose. A few cold cases. A missing bar dancer. A cop fighting his own demons. From the glitzy high life of Mumbai to its dark underbelly. The wheeling dealings and the political nexus. The gripping police procedural will have you turning the pages.

It was one of my most anticipated reads for 2023 and it completely lived up to its expectations. The charm of the book is as much as the layered complex characters (Tara, Arnav, or even Nandini for that matter) as is the taut yet descriptive storyline.

Similar to her debut book, You Beneath Your Skin, this one too is well-researched. The writing is lucid transporting you to the city of Mumbai. The swampy mangroves to the hustle and bustle of the locals to the glitz and glamor of Bollywood. The city could well have been a character in itself.

Highly recommended and completely worth the hype. It is the first book in the Blue Mumbai series. I am eagerly looking forward to the next one in October 2023.

A complex and intriguing story set in Mumbai. Different POVs and different type of characters create a choral story that never drags and kept me guessing.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

The Blue Bar is a book that is one of its kind. I loved reading a crime/mystery that is set in Mumbai, India. While this may take some getting used to for other readers due to books being set in the English speaking world, I do think it provides a nice palette cleanser for all readers alike.

The inclusive of four (4) narratives spanning Arnav, Tara, Bilal and the murderer allowed you to understand the entire picture without giving too much away until the final reveal. At times however, I do feel like the writing was a bit repetitive which was not needed.

The inclusion of the Hindu festival of Diwali, the public security system of India, the mafia system, the private bar trade system and the descriptiveness of the atmosphere effectively added to being fully immersed in each scene. The author did a lot of research to get everything right and it shows.

Please note, some scenes may be too bloody and gruesome for certain readers. Additionally, some themes that may also trigger a reader are paralysis, shooting, kidnapping, suicide, grief and murder.

Have you made a goal for yourself to read books set in locations around the world? Do you enjoy traveling the world with books? How about Mumbai?
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I loved the gritty, exotic setting of this crime noir thriller, The Blue Bar by Damyanti Biswas. I was immersed in India, the author did such an excellent job of describing sights, smells, and the overall feel of Mumbai.
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This story is told in multiple points of view, Tara’s, a bar dancer who disappeared after trying to earn some fast cash by doing an easy, “special job” for her boss, Arnav’s, who was Tara’s lover and is now investigating a possible serial killer when women’s bodies are unearthed, and the Killer’s. I really love it when the killer chimes in and we get that added glimpse of a deviant mind.
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Once we got set in what the story was about, the book moved quickly and my theory kept changing as to who the killer was. I definitely was anxious to travel this journey to see if I was right or wrong.
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This is billed as the first in a series and I am excited for it. Thanks so much to @damyantig @amazonpublishing and @letstalkbookspromo for including me on this tour. I love being able to recommend good books!
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I did enjoy this but sometimes it felt very slow and hard to get through. I liked the plot line about a serial killer and being inside their head without knowing who it was. I had a few guesses and was wrong about the killer but right about some other things! The author had a good writing style and I left like I got to know India a bit better through her writing.

I would try this author again.

3.5 stars

Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput, who's been with the Mumbai police for twenty years, is called to the scene when a dead body is discovered on Madh Island. During excavations for a luxury spa on the site, laborers uncover the corpse of a woman missing her head, hands, and feet. The bodies of two more women are found nearby, also missing their heads, hands, and feet.

The mutilated corpses stir a memory in Arnav and he has his capable assistant, Sub-Inspector Sita Naik, look up all unsolved cases involving decapitated bodies. It turns out at least five beheaded female bodies were found in Mumbai over the last twenty years, and Arnav believes a serial killer is at work.

Businessman Rahul Taneja, who's building the spa on Madh Island, has powerful connections among police and politicians, and he's anxious to have construction continue....so he pulls some strings.Thus high-ranking police officials discourage Arnav's talk of a serial killer, and encourage him to release the island crime scene so construction of the spa can resume.

As it turns out there's an entire cadre of people who want Arnav's serial killer inquiries shut down, including police, mobsters, government officials, and Bollywood bigwigs. Worse yet, some conspirators seem willing to kill Arnav to stop the investigation.

Arnav has other things on his mind as well. He still pines for an old girlfriend named Tara Mondal, who was a teenage dancer in an establishment called The Blue Bar when Arnav met her. Tara disappeared from Mumbai fourteen years ago, without a word to Arnav, and the Inspector still mourns the break-up.

In Arnav's free time he sees his current girlfriend, a journalist named Nandini, and hangs out with his colleague and best friend Hemant Shinde. Both Arnav and Shinde long to expose a corrupt Joint Commissioner of Crime named Neelesh Joshi, who didn't properly investigate the rape of Arnav's sister Asha many years ago - implying Asha shouldn't have been out at night. The resulting distress and humiliation led to Asha's suicide and Arnav is determined to take Joshi down.

Meanwhile, dance bars, which had been banned in Mumbai for over a decade because of unsavory practices, are being permitted to reopen. This includes The Blue Bar, and Tara Mondal is returning for one week, to work as a dancer and choreographer. This leads to Arnav and Tara meeting again after fourteen years, and results in various kinds of drama.

The story is told in alternating chapters that follow the points of view of of Arnav, Tara, a character called 'the boy', and the boy's servant Bilal.

In Arnav's sections we observe his investigation of the serial killings, his renewed relations with Tara, and his delving into suspected collusion among cops, gangsters, politicos, business executives, and the like....whose main interests are power and money.

In Tara's chapters, we learn what's it like to dance in Mumbai bars - with drunk smelly men pawing you, throwing money at you, and negotiating for 'night work' (prostitute services). We also find out why Tara left Mumbai fourteen years ago, after her boss at The Blue Bar sent her to entertain a perverted rich client who had special requests.

In sections devoted to the boy, we meet the psychopathic murderer that kills and mutilates women.

And in Bilal's chapters we discover that he's looked after the boy for many years, and (reluctantly) helped clean up after the boy's unsavory activities.

The novel immerses us in Indian culture, and though I'm not familiar with all the references to festivals, food, clothing, language, gods, goddesses, etc., I enjoyed the depictions. Moreover, I often felt I was steeped in the ambiance of Mumbai. For example, when young Tara first arrived in Mumbai on a train, "The stench of the city had overwhelmed her: a mix of rotting vegetation, frankincense, urine, perfume, frying fish, and the hopes and despair of more people than she'd ever seen gathered in one place."

And when Tara was sent to Borivali Train Station during rush hour, "[She] elbowed her way through the milling passengers. Many regional languages. Body odor. Perfumes. If she didn't give way to the men, they'd shove her at the shoulder if she was lucky; lower, if she wasn't."

I also liked the sprinkling of Indian slang words, like pandu (idiotic policeman); khabri (police informers); khajoor (stupid person); supari (contract to kill); fattu (a person who's afraid of breaking rules); and more.

I enjoyed the book, which is essentially a police procedural in an exotic (to me) setting. I look forward to future books in the series.

Thanks to Netgalley, Damyanti Biswas, and Thomas & Mercer for a copy of the manuscript.

I was very intrigued when I saw this was a detective thriller set in Mumbai, because it seems like a perfect setting for such a wild story & turns out, it was. A fast, enthralling read with complex characters and a dark story. But very engrossing! Was fun getting engrossed in a setting so different from the typical England and America ones, as it felt totally new and unique.

Another hit from Damyanti Biswas and she automatically goes on my auto-buy list.

The Story:
Tara was last seen at the Borivali station wearing a blue sequinned saree. Thirteen years later, her boyfriend, Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput still has some hope of finding her.

But bodies have started turning up with blue sequins scattered near them. Did Tara meet a similar fate? And who is the killer?

What I Liked:

1. Finally! A gritty noir based in India that is not cringe-worthy. No glorification of slums. No cows on the road. People travelling on the streets in cars (gasp! how is it even possible?)

Well, it is possible because India is not dirty and full of cows and elephants. It has another face that movies and other books fail to mention.

2. It reminded me of Sriram Raghavan and Anurag Kashyap movies - fast but enough to make you uneasy within.

3. The pace didn't let up throughout the book. When the love story angle came in, I thought I would be bored. But I was sooooo wrong.

4. The twist. Yes, I had guessed the killer long before halfway point but man! the ride to the end was awesome.

5. This is the first time I have read a police procedural thriller by an Indian author and I was invested throughout.

6. Mumbai. Now, what do I say about this place? I have never been there though it is only a 3-hour journey from my place, but I have heard it has a different vibe altogether. The ecosystem that the police, the informer network, the underworld mafia, the politicians, and Bollywood have is something that has to be seen to be believed. Moreover, the descriptions of the overfull platforms with the sea of people pushing everyone in their path towards one destination is something I have heard time and time again. I felt I was there when I was reading the book.

7. Bonus point! It had 2 characters with the names of my relatives! Neelesh Joshi is my husband's name (with a slight variation) and Arnav is my nephew. So yay!

What I Disliked:

1. The ending was something totally out of a Bollywood fillum. Maybe it will look good on screen.

2. Mispronunciations. Why Uhnna and not Anna???

4 stars and looking forward to the next book by Damyanti Biswas!

Thanks to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for the ARC.

The Blue Bar by Damayanti Biswas is a dark, gritty thriller set in Mumbai – a city of staggering contradictions whose darker side is as substantial as its glitzy, brighter side.

The city is readying itself for the festival season – first Dussehra and then Diwali – when Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput gets called to a construction site near a mangrove forest where the excavation has exposed a buried body. A preliminary forensic examination shows that the body – now barely more than a skeleton – with no head, feet or hands belonged to a woman, and thorough combing of the vicinity reveals two more likewise mutilated bodies. Reminded of a similar body found in roughly the same period more than a decade ago, Arnav unearths two such cases – both unsolved – from the archives that, added to the recent bodies, certainly look like the work of a serial killer. More similarities among the bodies emerge, and, going by the hints Arnav could gather from his sources, the killer could be active still, on his way to claim another prey, and Arnav is determined to stop him. But cold cases are not a priority for the department, and Arnav will be going against his superiors if he continues with the investigation – which he does – and his probe reveals deep-rooted corruption in the top levels of the department as well as the government, making a few influential people eager to silence him.

Tara used to be a bar dancer and had a relationship of sorts with Arnav – then a constable – before vanishing without a trace fourteen years ago. Before her disappearance, Tara had been sent by the bar owner on some strange assignments that used to pay her well but left her terrified. Now, she is back in Mumbai at the behest of her former employer for a short-term assignment that will pay her the money she desperately needs, and she is not planning to meet Arnav. But the past and the present collide, pushing the doomed pair and several others towards the deadly culmination of the years-long saga of depravity and brutality on what promises to be the darkest Diwali – the festival of lights – ever for them all.

The Blue Bar is the first novel by Biswas that I have read, and I am impressed enough to be watching out for her future books. She has created a great set of characters – positive, negative, and in-between – who feel realistic for the most part. Arnav is a conflicted individual: he is strong and vulnerable at the same time and is willing to make sacrifices for what he feels is right. The people from the police department supporting Arnav come across as a reliable bunch. Tara is resilient despite the bad cards she has been dealt by life, and one cannot help feeling protective about her. The serial killer, named only as the boy until the end, is a profoundly messed up person whose darkness evokes fear and aversion, and his man Friday, Bilal, is another intriguing character. The plot is intricate but fast paced, and the shifting perspectives of the narrative keep the tension unrelenting. The identity of the killer is hidden behind a number of probable candidates, each with a plausible enough story, keeping the reader guessing all along. Biswas’s descriptions of the city, its people, and the action are vivid, and the horror the killer’s preys feel is palpable. Like most thrillers, The Blue Bar also has a few incredible coincidences and some unanswered questions, but they do not affect the experience much. Gripping from the get-go, The Blue Bar is dark and disturbing and will certainly be liked by fans of crime noir worldwide.

I am grateful to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review the Digital Review Copy of The Blue Bar.

Really tried to get into this but struggled a lot with getting through it. Tried to read it for 100+ pages but for some reason couldn't get into it. Just not my cup of tea :(

This was a "DNF" for me. I tried to read it with a book club and we all stopped reading and chose another book. The first chapter was intriguing, but then I struggled to follow the story and was not engaged.