Six Suspects

May 4, 2009
This satirical crime novel from Swarup (Q&A
, the basis for Oscar-winner Slumdog Millionaire
) opens promisingly, but suffers from the absence of a genuine investigator. Journalist Arun Advani sets the scene by describing the circumstances of the killing of industrialist Vicky Rai, shot to death at his farmhouse near Delhi, at a party celebrating his acquittal for a particularly callous murder. In the crime's immediate aftermath, the authorities find six guests with firearms among the more than 300 in attendance. They include a Bollywood megastar, a corrupt former politician who may be possessed by the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi, and Larry Page, an unbelievably stupid American constantly mistaken for his more famous namesake (the cocreator of Google). Alternating flashbacks among the six suspects build to multiple false endings. While there are some funny moments, this is likely to please neither traditional mystery fans nor readers interested in contemporary India.

June 1, 2009
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.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

July 15, 2009
In this neatly constructed mystery, Indian author Swarup (whose 2005 novel, "Q&A", was made into the film "Slumdog Millionaire") provides a vivid portrait of his country and its culture. The premise is simple: after 32-year-old industrialist Vivek "Vicky" Rai ("the poster boy for sleaze") is acquitted of a much-witnessed murder, he's shot and killed at a party. The six suspects are the partygoers found to be armed: a retired bureaucrat who's sporadically possessed by Mahatma Gandhi, a famous Bollywood actress, an Onge native sent to retrieve a sacred relic, a poor cell-phone thief, a Texan seeking his mail-order bride, and Vicky's own power-hungry politician father. Background pieces about each suspect paint a picture of flagrant corruption, murder, and betrayal, as well as compassion and love, as the suspects' lives occasionally intersect. Revelations in the closing pages incite the population to call for much-needed reforms. Still, as the truth is revealed in layers, like the peeling of an onion, it's also clear that "plus a change".... VERDICT Enriched by the sights and smells of contemporary India, this mystery shows Swarup to be a skillful prose stylist and deft handler of plot, who's likely to win more readers. [Library marketing.]Michele Leber, Arlington, VA

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2009
Reviled playboy, industrialist, son of Indias home minister, and recently acquitted murderer Vicky Rai is shot in cold blood at his own celebration bash, and six suspects are rounded up, all carrying guns. If Agatha Christie wrote a mystery about modern India, it might be something like this, as each of the six suspects is profiled by an investigative journalist. How did they end up at Vickys party? Why does each one have a motive to kill him? Why are they all carrying guns? Swarup, author of Q & A (2005), the novel on whichSlumdog Millionaire was based, gradually reveals the answers to each of these questions through lengthy and detailed case studies of the suspects: a Bollywood actress, an American tourist from Texas, a tribal member from the Andaman Islands, a corrupt bureaucrat who claims to be Gandhi, a mobile-phone thief from the slums, and Vickys own father, an ambitious and ruthless politician. Charming, atmospheric, and driven equally by character and plot, Six Suspects is bound to be popular with traditional mystery fans and readers of international crime fiction, as well as the legion of Slumdog devotees. Highly recommended.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)