The Third Squad

January 30, 2017
Karan, the hero of this murky noir from Kumar (Artist, Undone), is an “encounter specialist” with the Third Squad, a special branch of the Mumbai police. The branch furthers the cause of justice by carrying out hits on the most egregious criminals. Karan, a new recruit with infallible aim, has Asperger’s, which makes him particularly suited to the black-and-white world of his job—until that same binary sense of right and wrong leads him to directly disobey a kill order, because it matters to him whom he shoots. Written in the first and third person (with one foray into second person), the overly dense narrative and its many threads provide occasionally confusing insights into Karan. One of the more interesting characters is Mumbai, which Kumar evokes with lyrical prose (“In the night the city yields to the will of those who hold remorse for ransom. This city of noir sleeps at dawn. The night’s debris waits for the tide”).

January 1, 2017
A melancholy cop's obsessions are just the tip of the iceberg as he leads a two-fisted team determined to clean up Mumbai's mean streets.The four men who make up the title team originally meet at police headquarters outside Pune, India. Sharpshooting Karan, who narrates much of the novel in grim, hard-boiled prose, leads the squad, which also includes Munna, Tapas, and Kumaran. Any notion Karan might have of serving the greater good is obliterated after a few months as the quartet is turned into contract killers for the police. Several chapters resemble short stories devoted to the assassination of individual crime figures. As the squad settles into its nasty business, Karan's loyal wife, Nandini, seeing a coarsening in her husband, worries about this new assignment. Pregnancy makes her more guarded but no less worried. Karan's boss, Ranvir Pratap, the compulsive larger-than-life character who put the squad together, is under constant administrative fire that prompts him to construct a hilarious set of "Criteria" for the hiring of squad members. Karan's demeanor and his resulting reputation may stem from the fact that he has Asperger's syndrome, a condition that entitles him (and us) to be treated to a pedantic explanation of the syndrome as well as an amusing 48-question survey. Can this crack team keep from cracking up as they rack up the kills? Kumar's (Virgin Gingelly, 2013, etc.) style, blunt but often by turns poetic and droll, is arresting even as his idiosyncratic plot roams far and wide, switching perspectives and pursuing twisty subplots with vigor. As unusual as it is compelling, this entry lays the groundwork for an entertaining series.

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February 1, 2017
The euphemistic term extrajudicial killings, currently most often applied to the Philippine president's war on drugs, was sanctioned by police in Mumbai in the very recent past, and the practice is at the heart of Kumar's gripping thriller. The novel's primary character, Karan, has a mild form of Asperger's syndrome, and a police official charged with developing a new squad of police encounter specialists senses that traits manifested by Aspies will produce successful, disciplined killers. Karan also demonstrates peerless marksmanship and proceeds to dispatch dozens of crime bosses, warlords, and hit men until he begins to question his actions. Kumar has created some thoroughly intriguing characters, including Karan, of course, and Nandini, his wife, but also a psychologist who is an expert on Aspies and who is getting rich from a porn website he created. But the most fascinating of Kumar's characters is Mumbai itselfenormous, crowded, hyperactive, roiling, stunningly rich and grindingly poor, and teeming with almost unfathomable energy. International-crime fans should flock to this one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)