Entangled Spirits: Dhruv’s Krithi

Some stories are purely fictional, created only to spark imagination. And then there are those written as fiction but so real in their essence that you almost feel them happening around you.
This book falls into the second category—a story that blurs the line between imagination and reality, pulling you into its world with ease.

To do justice to it, I’ll be sharing my review in two parts, because one post alone isn’t enough to capture everything this story has to offer.

Entangled Spirits: Dhruv’s Krithi drops the reader immediately into a high-stakes, chaotic environment within modern-day Kerala, India. The initial hook centers on two disturbing and seemingly linked events: the unexplained mass deaths of 27 young individuals at Delta Point, an incident immediately sensationalized by the media under the stark hashtag #DDD (‘Drugs, Death and Drowning’). This local tragedy is swiftly overshadowed by a deeply unsettling mystery: the vanishing act of Krithi Warrier, a highly visible corporate CEO. The authors masterfully establish a pattern of contradictory details: Krithi leaves her upscale apartment at 3:15 a.m., purportedly dazed and drunk, but deliberately leaves behind crucial personal effects like her mobile phone and wallet. This is framed not as a simple missing person case, but a complex thriller hinting at deep corruption connecting corporate power and state governance.

The primary police investigation is spearheaded by ASP Sanjay Sarathy and later involves the astute, retired SP Sheela Varghese Mammen. Their scrutiny immediately focuses on Krithi’s husband, Dhruv Krishnan, who claims to have been in a stupor after heavy drinking and oblivious to his wife’s departure. Dhruv’s claim that he was “drinking all the while” while his wife was missing instantly raises the eyebrows of investigators, making him an early suspect. Complicating the picture is the eventual discovery of Krithi’s car, a VW Vento, found abandoned and parked deeply inside a non-functional petrol pump about a hundred kilometers away, suggesting significant premeditation and preparedness for her vanishing act.

What elevates this story beyond a standard police procedural is the palpable political and corporate interference that the investigators encounter at every turn. Krithi was the CEO of New Energy Solutions, a company spearheading a massive and controversial offshore wind project heavily backed by the state government. With elections looming, the case instantly becomes a political firestorm. The Inspector General explicitly warns Sheela to handle the investigation carefully to protect the government’s image and mandates that “nothing is to leak to the media”. Adding to the complexity, Krithi’s company moves swiftly to seize her official electronic assets, including her phone and laptop, under the guise of protecting sensitive corporate data, a move Sheela and Sanjay immediately view as highly suspicious.

The narrative weaves character intrigue seamlessly into the procedural elements. Krithi is portrayed as an enigmatic figure with eccentric personal interests, specifically her hobby as a “machirologist,” a collector of knives and swords. Meanwhile, Sanjay’s dedication to the case intensifies when he connects a chilling detail about a WhatsApp group linked to the #DDD deaths to a name from a past, unresolved case that sends shivers down his spine. As Sheela and Sanjay dig deeper, they realize they are navigating a dangerous landscape where powerful, unseen forces are actively manipulating the evidence and public narrative, making the hunt for the missing CEO a personal and professional tightrope walk.

To be continued in the next post….