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Book Review: Play To Kill by Puja Mukherjee Khattri
- Style Essentials Edit Team
- Dec 16, 2025
- 3 min read
What gives Puja Mukherjee Khattri’s Play To Kill its hold on the reader is not loud action but the steady discomfort that comes from watching everyday routines shift in ways the characters cannot explain. Delhi becomes the ideal setting for this kind of story: crowded, fast-moving, and full of places where people disappear into one another’s blind spots.
The novel begins with incidents that seem unrelated: a child disappearing inside a supermarket, a break-in that leaves no visible trace, and a young professional found unconscious at an airport parking bay. None of the victims can recall what happened to them. A lab report reveals the same chemical in each case, and that small detail is what finally lands the files on ACP Karan Singh Shekhawat’s desk.
As his team begins sorting through the timelines, they come across something curious. Several college students have been performing a set of online “tasks” that appear harmless, running errands, observing someone briefly, and dropping off objects without asking questions. On their own, these acts seem pointless. But once the officers start comparing dates, distances, and the locations where they found the victims, the pattern sharpens into something more than coincidence.
Hovering behind this strange chain of events is Mataji, a figure whose influence does not depend on display or theatrics. People approach her for comfort or solutions, and somewhere in that exchange, she acquires a kind of authority they don’t fully recognize until it is too late. Khattri allows this presence to build slowly, through the way characters speak of her rather than through dramatic entrances.
Karan and Anya come into the story from very different worlds, yet the case pushes them into the same orbit. He approaches the investigation with the steadiness of someone who has seen situations turn without warning. She steps into it more cautiously, reading every shift in the air before she reacts. When they do meet, there’s no forced chemistry, just two individuals trying to understand a chain of incidents that grows more tangled each time they think they’ve found clarity.
The narration moves with a steady beat. Scenes turn over naturally, without the sense that the writer is hurrying the reader along or slowing down for effect. Even brief moments contain details that become important later. Khattri’s style relies on observation rather than flourish, allowing conversations and behavior to carry the story.
Khattri also taps into a very recognizable tension of urban life, like how easily people leave traces of themselves without meaning to and how routine digital habits can open doors they never intended anyone else to walk through. It’s this quiet exposure, tucked inside everyday actions, that lends the book its persistent unease.
As a debut, Play To Kill shows a writer with clear command over her material. The plot is tight without feeling mechanical, the characters have depth without heavy explanation, and the city feels present in every choice the characters make.
Khattri’s focus on motive, manipulation, and the subtle ways influence spreads makes the novel as thoughtful as it is tense.
For readers who enjoy crime fiction grounded in both investigation and human behavior, Play To Kill delivers a sharp, absorbing experience that stays with you long after the final chapter.
Title: Play To Kill
Author: Puja Mukherjee Khattri
Publisher: Srishti Publishers & Distributors
Available at: Amazon, Flipkart, and Srishti Publishers
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