博客來TEN GUESTS. ONE BILLIONAIRE. AN ISLAND WITH NO ESCAPE.
A COUNTDOWN TO RETRIBUTION HAS BEGUN.
Reclusive tech titan Vikram Raichand invites nine strangers to the unveiling of his ultra-secret, AI-controlled paradise: Nirvana Villa, perched like a steel vulture on Karnataka’s remote Netrani Island. Each guest carries a glittering résumé - a war hero, a celebrity activist, a media mogul, a rising tech star. Each also carries a dark, buried sin from fifteen years ago, linked to the catastrophic Mangalore Bay Disaster that claimed hundreds of lives.
The invitation promises closure. The arrival promises luxury. The truth promises hell!
As the automated hydrofoil departs the mainland, VASTRA - the villa’s omnipresent artificial intelligence - seals the island. No signals. No boats. No mercy. Vikram appears only as a hologram, his voice cold as the Arabian Sea wind: ＂Four hundred and twenty-three dead. Nine lies. One truth. Your reckoning is here.＂
Before panic can take root, the first body surfaces. Drowned. Beside it, a grotesque Yakshagana puppet - a greedy king. Trapped in a gilded cage that has become a high-tech tomb, the guests realize Nirvana is a meticulously crafted slaughterhouse. One by one, they start dying. Crushed by automated gardens. Strangled by fibre-optic cables. Electrocuted by sabotaged tech. Poisoned by personalized water dispensers.
Each corpse bears a chilling puppet - a soldier, a false priest, a puppet-master - mirroring their hidden sins. Paranoia festers. Alliances shatter. Is Vikram hiding in the walls? Is VASTRA the killer? Or is the murderer among them, wearing a mask of fear? As the body count climbs and a furious storm cuts them off from the world, desperation turns to madness. Only three terrified women remain when the final, brutal confrontation erupts in the AI’s control room.
The killer is revealed in a blaze of blood and betrayal... only to rise again. In this house of glass and ghosts, justice isn’t blind. It is watching. It is counting. And your rupee is next!
A masterful blend of Agatha Christie suspense, cutting-edge tech, and deep Indian context where ruthless isolation meets cutting-edge tension in a storm-lashed nightmare where the sins of the past demand payment in blood - and the price is exactly Ten Rupees.
