#372 - Nisha Small : The Knot of Gold
by C.G.Salamander and illustrated by Rajiv Eipe
“Nisha Small : The Knot of Gold” by C.G.Salamander and illustrated by Rajiv Eipe. Published by Duckbill. A delightful story of the youngest detective in Madurai who has to solve the mystery of a missing gold thaali.
It is the day of the wedding of Jamie’s sister Priya. Jamie is nervous as he has been entrusted the mammoth task of carrying the gold thaali (chain) to the priest. If he dropped the thaali, all hell would break loose for sure. As Priya is led to the altar along with her father, the priest yelled that the gold thaali is a fake. The parents of the bride and groom were at each other’s throats. There was tension in the air.
Nisha Small who is a school friend of Jamie is called to solve the mystery. She is trying to collect all information meticulously from Jamie as to what exactly went wrong. He explained to her that Priya’s engagement saree went missing the previous day followed by a fire. In the midst of all this, he had to rush to the dentist due to toothache after biting off a chunk of sugarcane. Thankfully his paternal paati was a dentist. She filled up his cavities quickly and started him off on an icecream marathon. His parents had started fighting over the day’s happenings and there was lot of stress on him as he had to carry the thaali without causing any further problems. Any more ominous events could result in the wedding being called off! And now this terrible incident of the missing gold thaali.
She has to live up to her reputation of being the best detective in Madurai which Jamie has announced with pride. Of course the adults don’t trust her abilities. They had already called in a group of five detectives who were bulky and looked straight out of an action packed Tamil movie no better. One punch from them and the villain would be sent flying through the air. The best part that Nisha observed about them were their funny moustaches. They were not taking her abilities seriously. The culprit had to be found soon and the thaali retrieved for the wedding to take place. Will Nisha Small be able to find it? Can she beat the older detectives? Who had swapped the thaali? Where was it? Will the wedding take place? Read this delightful book full of suspense and humour to solve the mystery and know all of the above.
My 8.5 year old and I had a jolly good time reading this book. It was a heady combination of humour and suspense keeping us giggling while at the edge of our seats :D The illustrations were cheeky, enhancing the experience and making the story come alive. And we were not able to solve this brilliant mystery though it seemed quite simple till it got revealed. We loved the way Nisha stood up and faced her challenges when the adults hardly took her seriously. In addition to the mystery, the rest of the story gave us a glimpse into a wedding in the Tamizh Christian community. It was a refreshing change to read a story set in the city of Madurai. The book is part of the “Hole Books” series of books which are meant for children who have begun reading chapter books independently. This was our first hole book and we enjoyed it thoroughly.
Recommended Age
The book is apt for children aged 7 and above.
Where to buy from?
An independent bookstore, Funky Rainbow, from where I buy many of my books.
Disclaimer - We received this book from the publisher, Penguin India (Duckbill), for review. Thank you to Greeshma and Mansi, from Penguin, for sending across the book!