The book begins with a newspaper article about the murder of an unpopular gangster whose father was an elected official. It claims that the murder took place at a party and that there are six suspects. The remainder of the book develops the character and lives of these six individuals, sometimes in their own voices. Enjoyable. ( )

Loved it--I liked how after the murder, then the author tells the backstory of each of the six suspects and how they came to be at the party and to be suspects in the murder. I was riveted reading this book. And, of course, the richness of India ran throughout the narrative. The one thing I thought was really funny is how Swarup depicted the American--it seemed so stereotypical and might be what he thinks about Americans. I highly recommend this book, though my husband was not as enthralled about it as I.

This novel starts with the death of a callous young playboy who is celebrating his acquittal from the murder of a bartender, then steps back six months to trace the intertwined stories of the six suspects in his death. The stories include mistaken identities, reversals of fortune, seemingly supernatural interventions, and plenty of pathos as well as dark, satirical humor. My enjoyment was marred by the plot thread focused on a witless Texan come to India to claim his mail order bride; the character is a caricature of a dumb American, but speaks as though the author had recently acquired a book of rural American idioms and wanted to use them all. Perhaps the other characters would be equally annoying if I knew India better, or perhaps they are drawn more effectively. ( )

Remarkable. I love it when a book is not predictable. Just when you think you have it all figured out, the next page proves you wrong - and this way till the very last page, literally. There is mystery here, there is top-notch satire, there is poignant exposure of Indian corrupt politicians and businessmen. I think this novel has seen the author grow as a writer since his first work "Q & A" (which was made into an Oscar winning movie "Slumdog Millionaire" but which, in my view, was so unjustifiably butchered by the screen writer). The format is rather unusual and intriguing. It's interesting that the author's career as a diplomat must have helped him to get into the mindset of his several major characters in this book - all of them of such different backgrounds. There is even your basic small town Texan with a mouthful of hilariously weird sayings in every sentence - though for this one, I would say, even a diplomat would have had to do a lot of "research" :)... There is a tribal from an island off the Indian shore - through his eyes, the contrast between huge noisy cities and simple nature of his island life is clearer than ever; there is a mega actress/beauty queen, as well as several politicians and businessmen, policemen and such - although these are more or less ubiquitous in their egregious daily dealings,- but altogether they comprise quite a picture. What is really rather striking is the fact that the author has directed such strong criticism into his "own backyard" - after all, being a diplomat, he is part of the government. I applaud him for that. And a word of caution for all those screen writers eager to pounce on this book - please, don't distort it like it was done in the case of "Q & A" ("Slumdog Millionaire) - yes, it won Oscar but only at the price of shocking the western society. ( )

Slumdog Millionaire was a good movie and I thought this book would be interesting. I liked the layout of the content, how the author separated it into suspect, motive, evidence, and confessions. Since there are 6 suspects, there are 6 different motives and evidence and so on. But that's about all I liked about the book.

I don't mind books that skip from one character to another, it keeps the mind jogging. But here, the 6 characters merged into one. I find them all flat and unreal. The dialogue is superficial and some of the metaphores and descriptions sound trite.

What was a bit of a disappointment was that the description of life in India couldn't really bring any pictures into my mind.
Some of the plot twists seemed unnecessary and felt like it was only there to increase page length.

I skipped pages of this bland writing to get to the end and that wasn't much of a surprise either.

I don't recommend it.. I think the author tried too hard too fit too many characters into his book. For a better peek into life in India, I recommend The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, which also happens to be a murder mystery. ( )