Micro review: 'Fatal Mistakes' by Vedashree Khambete-Sharma

An ad-woman, a former journalist, and now a writer, Vedashree writes thrillers, suspense and mysteries that will keep you on the edge. Vedashree Khambete-Sharma’s second thriller, 'Fatal Mistakes', released earlier this year. Published by Harper Collins, the book has been received well by readers and critics. Set in Bombay, 'Fatal Mistakes' is the story of a young journalist who is caught between her sole desire to report crime and her actual job as a feature writer.Sardonic, quick witted and restless, Avantika is in for an adventure!
The chasm between Avantika’s desire and reality is deepened by her nagging editor, a good for nothing assistant and a flirtatious colleague. Her colleague and friend Uday covers crime news and Avantika takes too much interest in his work, to the point of her boss taking it for interference and labelling her attitude as ‘too impulsive’ and ‘unsuitable’ for a crime journalist. Things at work are far from what she’d like to have, her love life is a mess and in the middle of all the chaos that her life is, she receives a mysterious text message that consists of an incomprehensible code, and a request for help from the anonymous sender. Meanwhile she develops a friendship with her flirtatious colleague Dhruv who cannot help but get involved with the messages and becomes a part of Avantika’s adventure. When she starts following the text messages’ trail, she finds that it is a quite long one in which one thing arises out of another and a few random messages lead to dangerous situations where she has to untangle herself from the web of Mumbai crimes.
The adage 'Curiosity killed the Cat' becomes too real when Avantika ends up putting her life in danger following the anonymous messages along with Dhruv, but is she able to get herself out of this mess? Is she able to realize her desire of reporting crime without losing her life and change her boss’s perspective towards herself? The book throws questions at the reader chronically and keeps the adrenaline rushing until it all gets resolved!