Business Doctors is a debut book by Sameer Kamat, who is the founder of a top MBA admissions consulting firm and also writes about book publishing in India.

The story line is uniquely based around using the principles of management in underworld. Yes you read it right, “underworld”.

For the folks in the underworld, the illegal work they do is business for them. And like every business there are ups and downs there also. While the business is on a downside it  may need help from business consultants, who are supposed to indicate the gaps in processes, people and revenue lines and potentially suggest remedial action items.

This book revolves around WFB a.k.a Woody Family Business which is running from three generations and is now seriously impacted by the recession and entry of new players (or so the boss thinks). He called in a consultant Schneider to help him revive his business. Schneider understands the business and presents the gaps in the same and also help Mr Woody hire appropriate talent by helping them in breaking the jail and thus spending 6 million dollars in the process. Angie, wife of Mr Woody played a very important part in all this action.

Overall the storyline was one of a kind, with a simple writing style and keeps the reader interested throughout. There was a place where I felt the sentence had a typo (don’t remember the page number though, but a grammar check in word processing software should pick that up). And I must say the climax was something which came as a little surprise to me. While the author has taken his time for various phases in the story line, the last 20 or so pages demanded a little bit more and the climax could have been wrapped up nicely. I was feeling that something was missing when the book came to a sudden end. The cover design and fonts could have been a little better and catchy.

Disclaimer – I received a review copy from the author and my review is not biased by that fact.

Web London is the only survivor of the Charlie group of FBIs Hostage Rescue Team which was all wiped out in a drug raid. The story revolves around what happens in Web’s life after that incident. Determined to find the culprit, Web was struggling with personal psychological problems and also suspicions from his own FBI, he decided to take professional help from a psychiatrist. In the process lot of interesting events unfolded including Web’s previous visits to another psychiatrist and his undergoing hypnosis.

The climax was somewhat unexpected and the actual culprit came as a surprise to me. However, I feel that it may have been presented in a better way to gain some interest from the user. Lots of different scenarios keep on switching very fast and often the traction from the main plot was lost sometime. Some of the characters perhaps were not necessary as I was not able to understand the role they played and significant number of pages were wasted on them.

This book the author has focused on gun crimes in the USA along with the usual banking theme. Two plots simultaneously runs and then they merge with each other towards the end. The author has also mentioned the problem of stashing black money in swiss banks by Indians and the role Indian investment bankers played in that.

Overall a good read, but not the very best by the author.

In addition to his standard folding toothbrush, Jack Reacher started carrying his passport as his identity document and an ATM card to withdraw cash from his account. This is a good progress into the “civilized world” for a guy like Reacher.

One fine day while withdrawing cash, he saw a deposit with a very strange looking number, something which triggered an alarm in his sub-conscious. After validation the source of deposit from his bank, he realized its a call from a fellow officer seeking help, and he proceeded immediately to LA. Upon his arrival he found that 4 out of his old team of 8 special investigators from Army days is missing and perhaps dead. And Reacher got involved in the investigations along with the remaining members of his team. It turns out a mix of arms/defense technology and terrorism related stuff.

It was a pleasure seeing Reacher working in a team, rather than the usual “alone”. He seems to also realize that they are getting out dated in terms of modern methods of investigation and are being out-smarted by other folks. In this case, Reacher manages to secure some finances for himself so that he can continue for some more time without having  to work somewhere in order to replenish his depleting bank reserves.

Let us see what happens in the next book in the series.