Kevein Books and Reviews

A troop of Indian sepoys is sent to France to fight against Germans in WWI. In this military fiction Indian sepoys, part of the British army, are being prepared to participate in all wars that England will represent. As per religious beliefs crossing oceans is forbidden. Going by this relic, some soldiers are confused and angry while many are relishing as their dream to visit ‘Villayat’, means foreign land, has come true.        As they advance gradually for the front – they come across to many new and thrilling experiences in France. Foremost in the list is that they are able to enjoy bits of life abroad and native people and French officers aren’t treating them like poor or wretched soldiers, the way they are treated back in their country. Interestingly, except Subh a junior officer and also a son of an officer, no one knows that they are prepared to jump in the battlefield to die first hand. Lal Singh also called ‘Lalu’ by his senior soldiers is ...

Today, with us, we have India’s most loved writer Ruskin Bond, who has been writing fiction mainly for children over sixty years. And even today he is quite popular among children. At the age of seventeen, he penned down ‘The Room on the Roof’ novel which won him John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1957. Not only this, he has won many other accolades for contribution towards literature. To his name there exist over 500 stories including novels and essays and other piece of fiction. Ruskin Bond lives in Mussoorie, a hill station town in India. Every Saturday he visits the Cambridge Book Depot for two hours on the Mall Road to meet his fans and visitors. If you liked to have an author signed copy, you better go there, stand in the queue, and get it done. Now’ let’s see what interesting stories he has to tell for his fans and readers across the nation who personally cannot go there to meet him. You were born in Himachal but you chose to stay in Mussoorie. Well, any particular rea...

Edith Van Hessen was born in 1925, in a prosperous Dutch Jewish family. Edith’s story is a non-fiction book and the narrative springs up from the dairy which she used to maintain during her teenage years and letters she wrote and received during the wartime when Nazis were clamping hard on the Jews of Holland. In 1939, she was a popular, 14-year-old, high-school student. Then her life was perfect – sporting events, trips with friends, crush on boys, etc. However when the Hitler-led Nazis invaded Holland, she could not apprehend the future would be dented. For this reason, she is somewhat considered stupid as she could not see the approaching danger for herself and her family. Nazis didn’t round up the Jews of Holland all at once, it was done in a process, step by step, they were expelled from schools, stopped to meet non-Jewish people, and later on were made to transport, on plausible excuses, to concentration camps.  Though her father had excellent connec...

Three siblings live happily in a well-decorated big house in London. When they go to school, their mother writes stories for when they return she reads the same to them. Their father, who works in a Foreign Office, also loves them. One day two men come and take their father with them. And soon their father is imprisoned on the charges of spying.    As the things turn untoward for them, the three children along with their mother shift to a countryside house in Yorkshire. Their new home is musty and has three chimneys; also father is away since the responsibility of taking care of the children ultimately falls on the mother. She writes stories for magazines and newspapers editors, sometimes they get rejected and many a time if they are selected their mother treats them with special buns. The house is nearby a railway station and due to financial constraints children do not attend school anymore. Hence, to while away their time they have befriended the station ma...

When the book opens, the time is 1950, and the people of Sicily Island are living in destitution and dying of starvation. They have no proper access to food. They buy food from the black market because mafias for their personal gain influence the legal distribution system. Michael Corleone is on an exile in Italy. But his time is about to end and he may go back to America soon. But as per his father, Vito Corleone’s agreement with Don Croce Malo, the boss of all mafias in Sicily, Michael Corleone is given a task to send Salvatore Guiliano to America and also to take hold of the testament prepared by Salvatore Guiliano, as the testament is critical and capable of tarnishing the image of many prominent politicians of Italy and will also dent the influence of Don Croce Malo. Salvatore Guiliano, also known as Turi, a celebrated bandit and hero to the Sicilian people, refuses to escape to America unless his pregnant fiancée, Justina, reaches there safely and sends posit...

Set during the Second World War, the main theme of the book is to bamboozle Hitler for the D-Day invasion plans. Whether the Germans should approach Normandy or Calais for the France invasion? So, basically it is a war-fiction. Peter Jordan, an American engineer, arrives in the wartime Britain for the construction of an artificial harbour and also becomes the important part of the top secrets related to D-Day. Then there is very intelligent man Alfred Vicary, a British academic, also a good friend of Winston Churchill who introduces him to MI5 (the British Counterintelligence Operations). As the war is on, Abwehr, a spy network of Germans, is very much active in the Britain. Alfred Vicary devises a plan in which Abwehr will keep receiving the information about the Britain’s moves but the information relayed will not be truth. It will be rather fabricated, so as to deceive their spy network. However, the real worry is to dig out the sleeping agents of Germany as they are mor...

In Johannesburg, Kitchenerville Fields is a dirty place yet full of prospects of gold. Here, a packet of some wealthy men, truly obsessed with business, aim to influence the market and political landscape and for that they can accommodate to any scope. For them their real pride is profit making business, above anything else. Rod Ironsides is promoted as the general manager of the Sonder Ditch, the largest famous gold mine in Kitchenerville Fields, but in return he is asked to stick to blind obedience of his boss, Manfred Steyner. So far life has been tough for Rod, apparently after a pathetic divorce, nevertheless he has penchant for bar clubs and one-night stands. Yes, but the offer of Sonder Ditch is a lifetime opportunity for him. On the other hand, a behind-the-scene conspiracy is laid out to immolate the lives of thousands of miners. The killing of thousands of miners would pave way for Menfred’s personal profits. Manfred Steyner is mentally ill, thus, orders Rod and h...