The descriptions are taut and at the same time, accurate, reflecting, for example biases against Russian-educated doctors, transgenders, and women in general. The author keeps the reader guessing until the end as to both the motives and the identity(ies) of the attacker(s). Lalitha Mahadevi – deputy chairperson and internationally known doctor, the unusually named Daniel Parthasarathy – highly eccentric computer hacker, and police commissioner Nayana Bharadwaj keep the momentum going. An interesting cast of characters, including Russian-educated junior doctor Meenakshi, Dr. While retaining this vision, he engages in some extraordinary neurological work, with David Luca, an eccentric but brilliant neurologist.Īll is not well at Southern Healthcare, however, as a series of murders and attempted murders start impacting the hospital. The chairman of the hospital, Rahul Sivashankar, is portrayed as a visionary young man who works on the cutting edge of medicine, and realizes most of his vision of building an extremely automated hospital in Kerala. Most of the action in the novel takes place at the highly automated, futuristic Southern Healthcare Hospital in Kochi. The 272-page novel succeeds in keeping the reader’s attention throughout.

This is Sivan Edamana’s debut novel, and it is a spectacular triumph. The award was set up to honor 100 years of writing by Agatha Christie – her first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920.

This book was awarded the best Malayalam crime fiction book award by DC Books in 2020. Read Neuro Area, a 2020 Malayalam crime thriller by Sivan Edamana.

NEURO AREA by SIVAN EDAMANA