Bestseller (Amazon Prime Hindi Web Series)

 Not family friendly.

The past can come back and haunt the present. And screw it up badly.

A famous author Tahir Wazir (Arjan Bajwa) has been facing a writer's block many years since writing a very famous novel. He meets a wannabe writer Meetu Mathur (Shruti Haasan) who is a huge fan and has a story of her own. Since he has no ideas of his own, Tahir wants to user her story and so strikes up a friendship. 

Tahir's wife (Gauhar Khan) is a successful Ad agency owner. She gets a new intern, Parth (Satyajeet Dubey), who is bright but has a hidden agenda. That of destroying Tahir and anyone close to him.

A series of whirlwind events, bodies dropping, assaults, and we have a full blown case on our hands. Tahir gets hammered from all sides, and the needle of suspicion points squarely at him.
Mithun Chakraborty and Sonalee Kulkarni are the cops in charge of the case. Mithun has a reputation of not letting go until he finds the truth. But he has a past too.

The truth lies hidden in Tahir's past and the novel he wrote. 

The direction is fast paced. You don't feel bored at any point in time. Mithun as usual, gives a good performance. Shruti is competent, so is Sonalee. Gauhar Khan is so-so. Satyajeet Dubey is good in places, overacts in others. Arjun Bajwa does a decent job, but he could have done much better.

Finally the series left me with a sense of being less than what it could have been. It's a little unsatisfactory. But still definitely worth watching, with a promise of Season 2 clearly at the end.

The Great Indian Murder - Season 1 (Hotstar)

 Watched The Great Indian Murder on Hotstar. 

Not family friendly.

Tigmanshu Dhulia has directed the adaptation of Vikas Swarup's murder mystery 'Six Suspects'. I haven't read the book, so can't compare. 

The series - season 1 - is watchable. But if you are expecting Gangs of Wasseypur level stuff, you will be sorely disappointed. It keeps you engaged, and is pretty decent. But GoW it's not. 

A rich business man and third class human being - Vicky Rai - is killed at a party thrown at his own farmhouse. The list of suspects is long. But mainly there are 6, which include his own father - played by Ashutosh Rana. 

The bonus for me came in the form of Raghubir Yadav. What a delight to see him in action again! Ashutosh Rana and Richa Chadha are good in their respective roles as father of victim/suspect and Police inspector respectively. 

The CBI officer leading the investigation has his own agenda and no morals. Played by Pratik Gandhi, this was a disappointment. No pizazz. 

Shashank Arora as one of the main suspects was much better. 

Jatin Goswami as the victim is decent. Could have added more flair, but was ok. 

The main grouse with this series is that I am used to the Hercule Poirot kind of direction where the audience is also presented with the same set of clues as the detectives. And then you also get to do your own detection. You fail often, of course, but that's not the point.
Here you are shown things very late. So you can't even begin to try and deduce anything. It might be that way in the book, but surely there's room for improvement when the medium changes.

Some of the episodes are much better than the others and give a glimpse of Tigmanshu that we love. . Even with this unevenness, it still is watchable.