Despite some inevitable repetition and a gimmicky frame, a teeming, beguiling Indian panorama wrapped in a clever whodunit.
The author of Q&A (2005), the novel that became the film Slumdog Millionaire, returns with an equally high-concept tale that uses a murder investigation to launch a riotous tour of contemporary India.
After several years of legal proceedings, Vivek (Vicky) Rai is finally acquitted of a murder he undoubtedly committed. His father Jagannath, Home Minister of Uttar Pradash, throws him the party to end all parties—at which Vicky is shot dead. The Delhi police identify six suspects: corrupt womanizer Mohan Kumar; Shabnam Saxena, a sizzling actress Vicky had been pursuing; Hollywood adult-film producer Rick Myers; cell-phone thief Munna Mobile; Eketi Onge, member of a vanishing tribe from an island in the Bay of Bengal; and Jagannath Rai himself. As their back stories reveal, each had a powerful motive for wanting Vicky dead. But those back stories serve mainly as pretexts for a series of fantastical adventures that have little to do with the question of who killed Vicky. Munna, whose experiences most closely recall those of Ram in Q&A, hurtles from rags to riches, from impossible love to intolerable pressure. Tribesman Eketi, pursuing a totemic stone stolen from his people, is by turns befriended and exploited by a series of heartless manipulators before finding his ideal in Munna’s sister Champi. An American Candide (later linked to the murder investigation) flies to India in search of his mail-order bride, gets fleeced and ensnared in terrorism, then is placed in the Witness Protection Program. Shabnam Saxena grooms a destitute supplicant to be her professional double, with predictable results (think All About Eve with a vengeance). And the ruthless public officials of Uttar Pradash struggle to outdo each other in their zestful search for more money and power. Along the way, a hundred walk-on characters flare to vivid life, then vanish in the rearview mirror to make way for others equally memorable.
Despite some inevitable repetition and a gimmicky frame, a teeming, beguiling Indian panorama wrapped in a clever whodunit.Pub Date: July 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-312-60503-2
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.
Too much free time leads a New Hampshire bookseller into yet another case of murder.
Now that Tricia Miles has Pixie Poe and Mr. Everett practically running her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, she finds herself at loose ends. Her wealthy sister, Angelica, who in the guise of Nigela Ricita has invested heavily in making Stoneham a bookish tourist attraction, is entering the amateur competition for the Great Booktown Bake-Off. So Tricia, who’s recently taken up baking as a hobby, decides to join her and spends a lot of time looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A visit to another bookstore leaves Tricia witnessing a nasty argument between owner Joyce Widman and next-door neighbor Vera Olson over the trimming of tree branches that hang over Joyce’s yard—also overheard by new town police officer Cindy Pearson. After Tricia accepts Joyce’s offer of some produce from her garden, they find Vera skewered by a pitchfork, and when Police Chief Grant Baker arrives, Joyce is his obvious suspect. Ever since Tricia moved to Stoneham, the homicide rate has skyrocketed (Poisoned Pages, 2018, etc.), and her history with Baker is fraught. She’s also become suspicious about the activities at Pets-A-Plenty, the animal shelter where Vera was a dedicated volunteer. Tricia’s offered her expertise to the board, but president Toby Kingston has been less than welcoming. With nothing but baking on her calendar, Tricia has plenty of time to investigate both the murder and her vague suspicions about the shelter. Plenty of small-town friendships and rivalries emerge in her quest for the truth.
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0272-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
This ran in the S.E.P. and resulted in more demands for the story in book form than ever recorded. Well, here it is and it is a honey. Imagine ten people, not knowing each other, not knowing why they were invited on a certain island house-party, not knowing their hosts. Then imagine them dead, one by one, until none remained alive, nor any clue to the murderer. Grand suspense, a unique trick, expertly handled.
Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1939
ISBN: 0062073478
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1939
SEEN & HEARD
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