The great suspense in journalist Deepa Anappara's confident charmer of a debut novel comes from the author's slow revelation of just what kind of story she's telling. As schoolboy narrator Jai and two pals head deep into Mumbai, in an effort to track down children who have vanished from their impoverished neighborhood on the city's far outskirts, readers will likely hope that Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line turns out to be the kind of novel where scrappy kids can crack a case.
Jai, raised on TV police procedurals, certainly believes so, especially if he can find a scent for his street mutt Samosa to track. But Anappara draws startling contrast between her protagonists' game of "detectiving" and the reality of urban India, a country where a reported 180 children go missing each day. Kids get abducted and sold; parents fear to report the missing to the police, as the officers demand bribes and threaten to bulldoze their troublesome slum; Hindus blame Muslims and organize unruly patrols. Anappara supplements Jai's tour through shanties and brothels with resonant third-person chapters steeping readers in the lives of each of the missing kids, as well as shivery recountings of street kids' ghost stories. The result is a novel that offers the urgent tug of suspense, the playful kick of a child's adventures in forbidden places, the fascinations of local folklore, and a journalist's committed dramatization of socioeconomic reality. Anappara's absorbing story seizes the heart. --Alan Scherstuhl, freelance writer and editor