Sharath Komarraju

My favourite among the three books is the second - Rise of Hastinapur. It seems it's the longest of three as well, so the author takes enough time to develop each of the three characters. Each story is different to the others in tone and style, and in atmosphere. It almost felt like I got three novels for the price of one within that one book. I especially enjoyed the final Epilogue that brings the three strands of story together. Ganga is awesome!

If you're a fan of the Mahabharata, this is a no-brainer. If you don't like them, you always have the 30 Day Money Back Guarantee. As far as I know, no other writer is offering a money back guarantee on any of his books, so that alone makes this worth trying. Go for it!

Been wanting to read these for a long time, but they're not available anywhere else it looks like. Glad to have finally gotten my hands on them. I appreciated the app compatibility and the printable option.

Murder in Amaravati was the only one of Sharath Komarraju's books I'd read before I picked up this one. I can see that his fiction writing skills help him in writing nonfiction too. He brings a fiction writer's curiosity and imagination to this set. The feeling is infectious!

Not award-winning novels by any means, but they do a good enough job entertaining you. If you're a Mahabharata / mythology nut (like me), you will enjoy them even more.

I generally look for tight plotting in my stories, so I picked up Sharath's Birbal Mysteries first. These seemed like esoteric character studies. But when I read Winds of Hastinapur, I realized how wrong I was. There is tight plotting here too, albeit not surrounding a murder. The language is lovely, so that's always a treat.

Good

Of all the characters in the omnibus, I like the care and empathy that Sharath lends to the Bhishma and Drona characters. These are usually on the fringes, and very rarely do you see their characters and motivations explored. The leaps of logic that Sharath makes are always well thought out. The hypotheticals and thought experiments are lovely. Can see myself getting lost in these.

Great value for money. 58 proper-sized books at this price is a steal. Add to it that you have so much flexibility: you can read on any app or any device you want, and you can even convert these files into different file formats. You can even print out the pages / books you want. All of this of course would be of no use if the books themselves are no good. But the content itself is first-rate. I can see that it will take me a full year to get through them all. Even the bonuses are so well put together. I'd not heard of Sharath Komarraju before, so I was hesitant about placing this order, but I am glad I did. You will be too!

Good

Excellent reads! I'm a long-time crime fiction reader, and I am impressed by the variety on offer in these four books. Even the two Birbal books are dissimilar enough from each other to keep the reader's interest. One of the big challenges of writing in the crime fiction genre is that after a while, your stories begin to sound like one another. Sharath Komarraju avoids that pitfall here. Murder in Amaravati is a slow-burn, Banquet on the Dead is urban and fast-paced, Crows of Agra is a historical, and Tree Bears Witness is an impossible murder. Something for everyone.

Yudhishthir's character guide was great. Many other writers show him as a weak person but the author has a soft spot for him it looks like. Sympathetic portrayal of Yudhishthir. Interesting.

I enjoyed all four of these books to varying degrees. I liked the old-world sentimentality of Murder in Amaravati. Banquet on the Dead is a straight-up mystery set in contemporary India. Probably the weakest of the lot, but still very good. Crows of Agra had more atmosphere and immersion than I expected: it read like a work of historical fiction, despite the author's insistence that it is not. The Tree Bears Witness is easily the most tightly plotted, well-executed novel of the four. I'm an avid reader of crime fiction, so I'm not easily impressed. But these proved to be far better than I expected. Why is this author not famous?

Great value for money! I mean, think about it. You get 50+ books (I am guessing it is 58 I haven't really counted!) for this price - and there is a least 200 hours of reading material in here. Good reading material. Material you won't forget a week later. These stories and characters will stay with you. They will hopefully get you wanting to read more deeply into myth and history. But even if it doesn't, where else will you get 50+ books at this price? I will be honest, I'm one of Sharath Komarraju's older readers (discovered him way back with Banquet on the Dead), but even if you aren't, what have you got to lose? Go for it without a second thought.

Great puzzles! Reminded me of my childhood reading Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie books. Only here it's Krishna Shastri and Birbal…