Behing the Silicon Mask::Book Review

The story starts about the Indian techies, the software professionals, who are sent "onsite" to the USA to work at the client location from an Indian top company called CIKS. Most of them from CIKS are on deputation to work for a client, Mayflower Mercantile, at Milwaukee, in the state of Wisconsin. The author narrates how software engineers struggle working day and night, on high pressure projects, even working on weekends, staying late night at office to fix the bug and during the releases. Their co-ordination with the offshore counterpart, how would they handle the situation during the escalation being at the client location. Some would want to have a better standard of living abroad saving nothing while others want to pay off their family debts staying for a long term.

The live seems normal until a serial killer targets killing the immigrants which brings chill through the spine, in the winter snowfall at Milwaukee. His earlier targets were a Canadian (a teacher) and a Chinese-Singaporean, a student. The serial killer was clever enough to find the nationality of the former though none of his colleagues knew the truth. 

The book has many characters explaining the kind of people working for CIKS. How one has to please his boss to remain onsite, how one wouldn't care if he would remain at Milwaukee or not. Partho Sen and Varun Belthangady are close buddies ever since their offshore days in Bangalore. Both have given their best which makes the client happy. At the same time, you can not expect a boss like Laks Deshpande or Rahul Varma, who would give you good appraisal score. While Varun is happy that he can pay off his father's debt, his girlfriend is extremely unhappy that they are away. Partho, on the other hand, also has some problems with Rashmi, who is very much American. Kamaal, is another techie, who was forced to leave his job since he could not impress his boss. He had come to Milwaukee with a hope, that the dollars earned, would save his home in Bangalore from mortgage but it turned out the other unexpected way, leaving the country without any money. 

The news channel wants to alert the people being targeted and Vishnu working for CIKS gives an interview to an anchor revealing the employee strength at Mayflower Mercantile which puts the lives of Indians and their families in danger. Meanwhile, the Milwaukee Police Department is on high alert working hard day and night to find the killer. They manage to find the killer, who he is, what the motive was to kill the innocent.

The first 200 pages of the book seems to be slow moving on the day to day work and the love life. The later 100 pages are interesting and I could not keep the book down until I read it completely though I had eyes operated and it strained sometimes.

Will the cops get hold of the killer or he escapes? Will any immigrant be killed? Will they be able to protect the hundreds of techies and their families? Read the book to know more.

My rating: 4/5.