Sameer Gudhate Presents the Book Review of A Question of Trust by Jonathan Pinnock

The first thing you should know is this: I didn’t intend to laugh at 1:17 a.m. on a weekday. But there I was, trying to be a responsible adult, and suddenly snorting into my pillow because a fictional python named Bertrand decided to make his displeasure known. If you’ve ever had a book ambush your sanity at an ungodly hour, you’ll know the exact flavour of joy I’m talking about. And that’s the peculiar magic Jonathan Pinnock brings to A Question of Trust — a mystery that behaves like a mathematical equation gone deliciously rogue.

Pinnock is not your typical “math-meets-thriller” writer. A Cambridge mathematician who also writes poetry and once penned a bio-historico-musicological memoir (say that fast), he creates stories that feel like the collision point between intellect and mischief. His first Mathematical Mystery, The Truth About Archie and Pye, was quirky, witty, and wonderfully bonkers. But this second instalment? It has sharper claws. Bigger laughs. And a surprisingly tender heartbeat beneath all the chaos.

The book opens with Tom Winscombe, who might be the most accident-prone human in literary history, staring into the void his girlfriend Dorothy left behind — an empty office, vanished equipment, drained bank accounts, and a bedsit so grim you can almost smell the…