Vikas Swarup
Vikas Swarup
Vikas Swarup
VIKAS SWARUP
General introduction
Literary tradition is one of the richest in the world, combining as it does the diverse linguistic
and cultural traditions which coexist within the Indian subcontinent. Beryl Belsky of
the Writer’s Drawer offers an introduction to the riches of this literature, and its evocation of
the turmoil and profundity of Indian history and culture.
‘A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the
new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance’ – An
excerpt from the speech of Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India, 1947-64, on the
eve of the country’s birth, August 14, 1947.
My eyes were first opened to the wealth of literature about India when I saw that ‘jewel’ of
a British TV series, The Jewel in the Crown (Granada, 1984), based on the epic four-volume
novel The Raj Quartet (1966−75), by Paul M. Scott. Set mainly against the tumultuous
backdrop of the final years of the British Raj, World War II, and the Indian independence
movement, it explores a range of political, social, and moral issues of the time through the
intricate webs of relations developed between British and Indians, between Hindus and
Muslims, between young and old, and between members of Britain’s class system, and
through a complex of plots and sub-plots involving a variety of strong, memorable characters.
Scott (1920−1978) was first captivated by India when he served there as a British
commissioned officer during World War II. His work imbued me with a fascination for India,
which in turn led me to native Indian authors such as Rohinton Mistry, Vikram Seth, Salman
Rushdie, Sujit Saraf, Vikas Swarup, Jhumpa Lahiri, David Davidar, Manil Suri, and others.
What is common to all these writers is a depth of feeling for a country whose history,
diversity, cultural richness, and immense problems are reflected with great perception and
sensitivity in their fiction. Like Scott, a number of western writers, such as Gregory David
Roberts, were ensnared by their India experiences and created some excellent works set in
India.
This essay offers a taste of some of the wide array of contemporary fiction about India
available in the English language by Indian and other writers, its characteristics, and its
dominant motifs.
Vikas Swarup
The corruption that is rampant in India is a dominant theme in many novels. In Vikas
Swarup’s (pictured right) who-done-it Six Suspects (2008), the venal home minister of one of
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India’s states (‘the Politician’) is one of the suspects in the murder of his own son who,
unsurprisingly, was acquitted after murdering a bar girl. Swarup is also the author
of Q&A (2005; known also by its film name Slumdog Millionaire), in which a penniless
waiter who answers all the questions correctly in the equivalent of ‘Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire?’ is thrown into prison, accused of cheating, because of who he is, and because
the producers don’t have the million rupees he won to give him. In similar vein, Aravind
Adiga demonstrates that crime does pay in modern India in his prize-winning novel The
White Tiger (2008). Balram, the protagonist, is a poor, low-caste but bright boy (hence his
nickname ‘The White Tiger’) from a village in ‘the Darkness,’ of rural India, who emerges
into ‘the Light’ as a wealthy member of a top caste in India’s urbanised, high-tech society.
Family, tradition, and the inequities of the caste system are themes that run throughout the
narrative in all the books outlined above, as well as in much other literature about India. The
four disparate characters of different castes and backgrounds in Rohinton Mistry’s very
fine A Fine Balance (1995) are thrown together and struggle to survive during the turbulent
times from independence to the period of the Emergency Laws under Indira Gandhi in the
1970s. Mistry does not flinch from painting a grim picture of the fate of the poor and the
downtrodden in India under Gandhi (such as forced sterilization). One of the most sensitive
books on family and family relations in India is his Family Matters (2002), a painful look at a
troubled Parsi family, whose problems are compounded when the 79-year-old patriarch is
forced to move in with his daughter, son-in-law and children, after becoming bed-ridden.
It is an undeniable and essential fact of life that our society is controlled by money. Those
who are affluent flourish in such systems while the poor are deprived. The novel Q&A by
Vikas Swarup serves as an in depth and riveting tale regarding the less fortunate people of
India. It follows the protagonist Ram Mohammad Thomas as he explains how he knew all ten
answers in the game show, Who Will Win A Billion?
“My departure from Asia’s biggest slum would make no difference to their lives. There
would be the same queue for water in the morning, the same daily struggle to make it to the
seven-thirty local in time. They wouldn’t even bother to find out the reason for my arrest.
Come to think of it, when the two constables barged into my hut, even I didn’t. When your
whole existence is ‘illegal,’ when you live on the brink of penury in an urban wasteland
where you jostle for every inch of space and have to queue even for a shit, arrest has a certain
inevitability about it. You are conditioned to believe that one day there will be a warrant with
your name on it, that eventually a jeep with a flashing red light will come for you” (2).
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Within the first few pages of Swarup’s Q&A, we learn that impoverishment has put Indians
like Ram Mohammad Thomas in a miserable situation — the poor are completely outcast
from society. Like in the days of the Hindu Caste System, they have truly have become
pariahs who are assumed to participate in at least one felony in their lifetime. In this
particular section of the book, the reader is first associated with the theme of the effects of
poverty. The rawness of Ram’s tone as he presents the facts urges the reader to sympathize
with those being mistreated. By using more personal terms like “you” and “your” when
describing the scenarios, he drops us into the action with horrifying clarity. Through his
diction, Ram portrays the monotony of day-to-day life and the uneventfulness of being taken
away by the police. The reader gets a sense of pity as they understand that these horrors have
become a natural, necessary part of living in the slums.
“We especially like watching the films on Sunday. These films were about a fantasy world. A
world in which kids have mothers and fathers, and birthdays. A world in which they live in
huge houses, drive in huge cars and get huge presents. We saw this fantasy world, but we
never got carried away by it. … The most we could aspire to was to become one of those who
held power over us. So whenever the teacher asked us, ‘What do you want to become when
you grow up?’ no one said pilot or prime minister of banker or actor. We said cook or cleaner
of sports teacher, or, at the very best, warden” (75).
In this paragraph, Ram depicts that even as a child, he and the other orphans were certainly
aware of the role they played in society. He forms simple statements to explain this situation.
The tone remains relatively unattached, yet knowing, as though his future is laid out
obviously before him and is full of turmoil. When Ram describes the movies he watches, he
mentions the things average people take for granted as if they are gifts from above. It is clear
that his lack of a family and a stable income creates a hopeless mindset. Ram and the other
children can only look forward to adding on to the never-ending chain by getting into a
position of power like those in charge of them. They are aware they will not receive any great
sums of money, and must become what they hate instead. Power is revealed to be a major
theme of Q&A.
“‘Where will we go? What will we do? We don’t know anyone in this city.’
‘I know where we will go. Remember that actress Neelima Kumari that Radhey told us
about? She needs a servant. I have her address, and I know which local train goes there.’
‘Are you out of your mind? Haven’t you learned anything since Delhi? Whatever you do,
wherever you go, never got to the police. Ever'” (98).
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The exchange in this passage is between Ram and his friend Salim as they frantically debate
an escape from Maman. Ram’s moving words end the scene with a bit of a shock, invoking a
lot of thought from the reader. The finality evident in his statement is proof that this fear of
authority is generally accepted and bred into the children raised in the slums. The
conclusiveness of his warning shows just how corrupt the government in India. Salim and
Ram must fend for themselves simply because they were born into poor families, living like
criminals though they have committed no real crime. From here, the reader truly understands
the message delivered in the prologue of Q&A; no matter their intentions for their lives, no
matter their contributions for society, anyone penniless in India is barely considered human to
those ranking above them. Money and authority become synonymous.
“Akshay refuses to believe me. He challenges me to show the money, and the prospect of
impressing him is too tempting. …. You should have seen Akshay’s eyes. They literally
popped out of their sockets. It was a victory to be savored for eternity. For the first time in
my life, I had something more tangible than a dream to back up a claim. And for the first time
in my life, I saw something new reflected in the eyes that saw me. Respect. It taught me a
very valuable lesson. That dreams have power only over your own mind. But with money
you can have power over the minds of others. And once again it made the fifty thousand
inside my underwear feel like fifty million” (155).
Ram is over-confident and feeling secure as he boards the train to Mumbai with his earnings
from the Taylor family. Constantly shunned because of his past social class, Ram cannot fight
his hunger for all the attention and “power” that accompanies having a full wallet. He focuses
on relating this feeling to the reader, who has no doubt experienced it on some scale. As he
has for the majority of the novel, Ram continues to use imagery as a major conduit for telling
this portion of his story. His familiar words remind us of our own desires to show off our
belongings, using an invigorating, almost hypnotic tone to do so. This passage details his
jusitifcation for flaunting his fortune and the changes occuring in his mind as he realizes he
might not have to be bound to the slums forever. However, Ram’s desperation to break away
from his former life coupled with his newfound self-righteousness ends up dooming him to
losing his rupees to a train robber. This quote overall relates back to the author’s theme that
money and poverty are two of the strongest forces in the world — barriers that require serious
determination to break through.
“But seeing these rich college boys spending money like paper, I am gripped by a totally new
sense of inadequacy. The contrast with my own imperfect life pinches me with the force of a
physical hurt. Not surprisingly, my hunger just shrivels up and dies despite the mounds of
tempting dishes lying on my table. I realize then that I have changed. And I wonder what it
feels like to have no desires left because you have satisfied them all, smothered them with
money even before they are born. Is an existence without desire very desirable? And is the
poverty of desire better than rank poverty itself? I think about these questions but do not
arrive at any satisfactory answers” (258).
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This passage brings on a different state of mind of Ram. His newfound ability to make money
through his Taj Mahal tours gains him new friends as well, if only for the moment. His
clients invite him for a night out that shows the true contrast between him and the four boys.
At this point, Ram has a revelation that goes against his previous thinking throughout Q&A.
He ponders the prosperous side of life and realizes it might not be everything he had dreamed
of back on the trains to Mumbai. Ram poses questions to himself that serve as a challenge to
the reader — this internal debate becomes an important change in the story. His character is
developing when he realizes that perhaps, even though he eats out of the garbage, his life is
fulfilled and satiated more than that of the wild college students.
From the author of the New York Times bestseller Slumdog Millionaire comes a richly
textured social thriller.
Seven years ago, Vivek "Vicky" Rai, the playboy son of the home minister of Uttar Pradesh,
murdered bartender Ruby Gill at a trendy restaurant in New Delhi, simply because she
refused to serve him a drink. Now Vicky Rai has been killed at the party he was throwing to
celebrate his acquittal. The police arrest six guests with guns in their possession: a corrupt
bureaucrat who claims to have become Mahatma Gandhi; an American tourist infatuated with
an Indian actress; a Stone Age tribesman on a quest; a Bollywood sex symbol with a guilty
secret; a mobile-phone thief who dreams big; and an ambitious politician prepared to stoop
low.
Swarup unravels the lives and motives of the six suspects, offering both a riveting page-
turner and an insightful look into the heart of contemporary India.
[A]lthough the story's geographical span is even bigger than India, the whole thing feels
handily confined to the kind of isolated, air-tight setting that Agatha Christie's readers love.
Thanks to such a schematic setup 'Six Suspects' is gleeful, sneaky fun….Mr. Swarup, an
Indian diplomat, brings a worldly range of attributes to his potentially simple story. [His]
style stays light and playful, preferring to err on the side of broad high jinks rather than high
seriousness. A fizzy romp seems to be the main thing he has in mind. Oddly enough, that
ambition turns this formulaic-sounding book into a refreshing oddity. It bears no resemblance
to any of the cookie-cutter genre books of this season.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times
“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.” —Booklist (starred review)
“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
Journal
“The author of Slumdog Millionaire has another blockbuster of a story that begins with a
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murder, then delves into the lives and motives of the six suspects. The reader becomes
intimately involved with each suspect while being treated to an eye-opening account of life in
India.” —Romantic Times BOOKreviews (4 1/2 stars)
“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...a teeming, beguiling Indian panorama wrapped in a clever whodunit.”
—Kirkus Reviews
the Indian literary novel may be riding high, but there is such a shortage of crime fiction set
in India's capital that Vikas Swarup can be considered a pioneer after producing this
whopping book. Six Suspects attempts to expose the contract killing and fraud that bedevils
Delhi. The plot is based on the murder of Jessica Lall, a model, in a bar in 1999. Here, the
victim is Ruby Gill, a Gandhian scholar and bartender who is shot dead after she refuses to
serve a notorious industrialist and movie producer.
Vivek "Vicky" Rai has already run over pavement dwellers with his BMW and poached
endangered blackbuck antelope. Thanks to his father, the corrupt home minister of Uttar
Pradesh, he has never served jail time; not surprisingly, he is acquitted of Ruby's murder.
During a gala to celebrate his acquittal, however, he is killed. Six gun-wielding guests are
arrested, and this sprawling, facetious tome traces the intertwining paths that led these
disparate individuals to Vicky's farmhouse.
There is the retired bureaucrat Mohan Kumar who, when not "playing sudoku on his laptop
and surfing porn sites", helps Vicky's family exploit India's labour and natural resources. One
evening Mohan attends a soirée, where a guru will channel the ghost of Gandhi for Delhi's
aptly satirised glitterati. The séance is interrupted by murderous nationalists, and in the
mayhem Mohan becomes possessed by what appears to be the ghost of Gandhi - which,
despite its pacifist inclinations, wants to avenge the death of Ruby Gill. For the rest of the
novel, Mohan alternates between pontificating on the merits of abstinence and re-inhabiting
his former, sleazy self. These tracts are intolerably monotonous and predictable.
Also cumbersome are Swarup's hackneyed descriptions and daft aphorisms, though he does
have a redeeming eye for the disparities that define Indian society. The fast-paced dialogues
between Vicky's father, the home minister, and his various underlings illustrate well the
corruption that burdens Indian bureaucracy. At one point, the home minister moves to ban the
film of The Da Vinci Code, in order to stir communal sentiment: "If I ban the film our party
will get some Christian votes in the local elections."
This is one of the innumerable instances in which Swarup borrows from actual political
events, but his attempts to graft front-page headlines on to plot make for superficial,
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encyclopaedic reading. And despite trying to shove in everything Indian under the sun,
Swarup makes one notable omission. He steers clear of the Gujarat riots of 2002, in which
Hindu activists committed pogroms against Muslim citizens. Likewise, when he enters
politically tense Kashmir, he lampoons autocratic and ignorant America and Islamic
fanaticism. There is nothing wrong with that, but Swarup, an Indian diplomat, lets the Indian
government off the hook. This is inexcusable.
In the end, Vicky Rai's murder is pinned on an innocent tribesman from the Andaman
Islands, and a stream of encores await. All fail to pack a punch. Swarup has attempted an
ambitious, complex project that required more cooking time, fewer plot lines and liberation
from the desire to write a "great Indian novel".
Hirsh Sawhney is the editor of Delhi Noir, to be published by Akashic Books. To order Six
Suspects for £13.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0870 836 0875.
Six Suspects
Reviewed by Dave Williamson
June 21, 2009
INDIA’S Vikas Swarup hit the jackpot with his first novel Q&A, which became the Oscar-
winning movie Slumdog Millionaire.
He now delivers an action-packed and often hilarious followup that exposes corruption in
high places.
In the opening pages, Swarup divulges that a young industry mogul named Vicky Rai has
been murdered.
The deed was done at a large party hosted by Vicky himself to celebrate his being cleared of
killing a female bartender named Ruby Gill.
The police have identified six suspects. Swarup devotes the next 400 pages to the individual
stories of how each of the six became implicated. What pulls the reader through the novel is
wondering how such a disparate group could have ended up at Vicky’s place and why they
wanted to kill him.
Part of the fun lies in Swarup’s using a different narrative style for each story. Also, Vicky is
such a nasty fellow, just about anybody wouldn’t mind seeing him dead.
The six suspects are:
– Mohan Kumar, former chief secretary of the state of Uttar Pradesh; through a scary
incident, he develops Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and from time to time takes on the
soul of some other person, often Mahatma Gandhi.
– Munna Mobile, a lower-class young man who has a knack for stealing cellphones out of
cars; one such theft leads him to a briefcase full of money. He falls in love with a mysterious
young woman who turns out to be Vicky’s sister Ritu.
– Shabnam Saxena, one of India’s best-known movie actresses. Beautiful, eloquent, and
adept at keeping Vicky Rai at bay, she falls victim to a double-cross.
Her story is told through her personal diary.
– Larry Page, a naive Texan who’s often mistaken for the head of Google; he goes to India
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expecting to marry a young woman he’s been corresponding with. Larry tells his own story in
a kind of Texas twang (“[The roads] were so bad, even buzzards couldn’t fly over them, and
so crooked you could see your own tail light”).
– Eketi Onge, a rather primitive young man sent to India by an island tribe anxious to recover
a sacred stone that had been stolen from his people. He falls for
Munna’s blind sister.
– Jagganath Rai, politician — home minister of Uttar Pradesh — and Vicky’s father; his story
is told entirely through telephone conversations.
It would’ve been helpful if the book included maps and a glossary. The latter is needed to
explain some of the Hindi terms, especially those used for clothing.
But the novel is mostly hair-raising fun. For literature lovers there’s even a character who
speaks in nothing but book titles.
There are some crazy coincidences, some zany twists, as well as an investigative journalist’s
columns and, as the novel rushes to its surprise conclusion, some TV news reports.
Put Six Suspects on your list of compulsory beach reading.
Dave Williamson is a Winnipeg novelist.
David Wood
Reviewing the Evidence
The best way to describe this book is in terms of its structure. The first nine pages consist of a
newspaper column describing the murder of Vicky Rai, an event which has dominated Indian
news since it occurred, two days previous to the writing of the column. Vivek ‘Vicky’ Rai
was a millionaire industrialist and playboy with a long history of bad behaviour culminating
in his shooting of a bar worker, Ruby Gill, who refused to serve him a drink. Although
everyone knew that he had done this, his father, the corrupt Home Minister of Utter Pradesh,
ensured that he was acquitted. Vicky threw a big party to celebrate his acquittal and at that
party he was shot dead. The police sealed the party and arrest the six people found in
possession of guns – a corrupt former Civil Servant, an American who claims to be a film
producer, a ‘tribal’ from Jharkhand, an unemployed graduate with a record as a mobile-phone
thief, an up-and-coming actress, and Jagannath Rai, Vicky’s father. These are the six
suspects.
The next section of the book ‘Suspects’ spends some 90 pages introducing us to each of these
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characters; in ‘Motives’ we have 374 pages telling the story of each suspect in more detail
and explaining why they arrived at Vicky Rai’s party with a gun; ‘Evidence’ devotes 35
pages to telling of the events of the party and its immediate aftermath; ‘Solution’ is 30 pages
of dazzling twists as various solutions are propounded and finally the 9 pages of ‘Confession’
give us the truth of the matter. Now I tabulate in this manner in order to emphasize that well
over 450 pages are devoted to the telling of the stories of each of the six suspects and each of
these stories is, in the main, an isolated one. Swarup employs differing narrative techniques
for each of these stories. Thus those of Mohun Kaur, the corrupt Civil Servant, and Eketi, the
‘tribal’, are told in the third-person; Shabnam Saxena (the actress) in a first-person diary;
Larry Page (the American) and Munna Mobile (the thief) in traditional first-person;
Jagannath Rai solely through the medium of phone conversations.
In trying to assess SIX SUSPECTS (Swarup’s first book Q AND A has been adapted for the
cinema as SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE) I start from the position that my knowledge of
Indian literature is, I am ashamed to admit, almost zero. Then by chance I came across the
following comments on Indian writers by David Baddiel in The (UK) Times ‘the books are
always very long, the comedy is always very broad, the moral emphasis is always very
foregrounded, and blimey there are a lot of characters’. Now I have no doubt that this is an
absolutely absurd generalization when applied to as diverse and rich a subject as Indian
fiction. But the description certainly applies to SIX SUSPECTS. First it is very long! 550
pages is a lot. And given this, it is remarkable that my interest never waned for an instant.
The structural techniques play a large part in this; each of the six stories is in its own way
utterly compelling. They cover a vast sweep and every level of Indian society is examined –
this is ‘sociological suspense’ on a truly epic scale. Swarup’s mastery of narrative impetus is
extraordinary. Next the comedy is broad. This comedy is concentrated in the stories of
Mohun Kaur and above all Larry Page, and, especially in the case of the latter, is very broad;
Swarup has a great deal of fun with American ignorance but he gets away with it because
Page is basically a sympathetic character. The moral emphasis is indeed ‘very foregrounded’
most especially in the stories of Eketi and Munna Mobile but it runs through every part of the
book; this is, and I use a cliche because sometimes cliches are the best description, a ‘searing
indictment’ of Indian political and social life. The story of Eketi in particular, a subject which
I knew nothing of, is utterly shocking. But moral indignation runs throughout the book.
Finally there are a lot of characters! Indeed at times I wanted a ‘character index’ at the back
of the book just to check out who some of the people were. And while many of the characters
we encounter (beyond our six suspects) are vivid and memorable, some inevitably are less
than that.
It is impossible to give more than indications in a short review of the breadth and depth of
approaches in a book as rich and diverse as SIX SUSPECTS. One important point to make
however is that the level of realism employed in the six stories varies widely; as a general
rule it may said that Swarup never allows realism to stand in the way of the much more
important moral, political or social truths which he is attempting to convey. This includes a
use of folk-lore and ‘woo-woo’, which latter however the reader is at liberty to read just as
she or he wishes.
While SIX SUSPECTS is very distinctively Indian this is not to say there are not constant
references to a global world (the interaction of Western and Indian influences and culture is a
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constant theme) ; there are also references to the Western mystery. From the PI who styles
himself on Sherlock Holmes (a comic reference) we move to the much deeper and tragic
reference in the story of Eketi. Eketi is in fact an Andaman Islander and the most famous (if
not only?) Andaman Islander in the Western mystery canon is, of course, he who appears in
Doyle’s appallingly and casually racist account as ‘Tonga’ in THE SIGN OF THE FOUR.
Swarup however is not only referring back to this but constantly shows how modern-day
Indians treat the Islanders in a similarly appalling racist and imperialist manner. In a different
mode and beyond the purview of mystery fiction Larry Page is a kind of dumbed-down
Candide.
When turning finally to the question of assessment I find myself forced to question one of my
own dearest tenets – that concerning the horror of any phrase involving ‘transcending the
bounds of the genre’. I don’t think SIX SUSPECTS does that but it does push the bounds;
and it does so because it applies what I take to be a very Indian consciousness to the genre.
This is not to say that in the denouement Swarup does not use a battery of plot tricks and
revelations which would fit neatly in any superior traditional mystery; he certainly does have
these devices at his disposal. But the bulk of the book, with its separate stories, has a reach
far beyond the conventional Western mystery, a reach which I take it comes from its Indian
heritage. I certainly would not judge everything to be triumphantly successful; in particular
some of the moralizing at times struck me as forced in terms of the characters delivering the
moral.
If you like small-scale detailed psychological examinations you may find this book is not for
you. But in my judgement SIX SUSPECTS is massive in scale, massive in scope and, above
all, massive in achievement; it does, and I can hardly believe I am saying this, push the
boundaries in terms of what mystery fiction can mean and accomplish.
Reviewed by Nick Hay, February 2009
Six Suspects
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 Pradesh, 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
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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.
25 October 2008
SIX Suspects is wonderful, witty and sophisticated — and probably one of the best literary
mysteries of the year.
Vikas Swarup toys with western prejudices and misconceptions about India, tackling and
condemning major institutions such as business, politics, religion and Bollywood while
championing the gentle and often noble nature of Indians.
Playboy “Vicky” Rai, son of a powerful politician, has got away with murder yet again,
thanks to his megalomaniacal father’s manipulation of a corrupt justice system, and is
celebrating the acquittal at his huge urban private estate, known as “The Farm”.
Everyone who is anyone is obliged to attend this social event of the season, but few of the
business billionaires, political pundits or stars of state and screen feel anything but fear,
contempt or revulsion for their host.
When Vicky is shot dead at the height of his party, the police act immediately, sealing off
The Farm and searching everyone present .
The police find six people with guns in their possession and these are the titular suspects,
who are arrested and investigated. The book recounts their histories and the events leading up
to the shooting, with alternating chapters devoted to the back stories of the unlikely sextet
under suspicion.
Unlikely because the group consists of a politician, Vicky’s father Home Minister Jagannath
Rai; a retired bureaucrat and business mogul Mohan Kumar; sex symbol and Bollywood
superstar Shabnam Saxena; the naive Eketi, a member of a primitive tribe; minor league
sneak thief “Munna Mobile”; and the dim and gullible American, Larry Page.
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Larry is flying to India to marry the beautiful girl he met through International Pen Pals.
Being a friendly fellow, he chats to his neighbour on the plane and is soon showing him
pictures of his fiancée. “I tell you … I can’t believe my luck.”
The fellow passenger replies : “I’m sorry to say dude, but you’ve been had. These are photos
of the famous actress Shabnam Saxena.”
Being several sandwiches short of a picnic, Larry convinces himself Shabnam has in fact
fallen in love with him, a short plump forklift operator from Texas. All he has to do now is
find her. His life is complicated by the fact that he shares a name with the inventor of Google
and is frequently mistaken for him — he is soon kidnapped and held for a ransom of $3bn.
Mohan, the utterly venal and corrupt former bureaucrat, is finding retirement a bore. His
mistress persuades him to accompany her to a public seance where a medium will attempt to
make contact with the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi.
An atheist and a sceptic, Mohan reluctantly agrees to attend the televised event, where his
contacts have assured him of front-row seats. So he has an excellent view as an outraged
Hindu nationalist shoots the medium for dishonouring Gandhi’s memory with a commercial
spectacle.
Mohan faints in the ensuing melee and when he comes to, he has been possessed by the spirit
of the Mahatma. His state of possession comes and goes: when Gandhi is in control, Kumar
devotes himself to helping the poor, correcting injustices and leading a life of spiritual
rectitude and physical asceticism — much to the disgust of his own spirit.
Swarup uses wit and hyperbole to expose the inequities of Indian society and, although he
exaggerates situations for dramatic effect, one suspects there is an underlying truth to all his
observations.
This is a murder mystery, but the twists and turns and various solutions are so convoluted the
identity of the killer becomes irrelevant, especially in comparison to the stories of the six
suspects, their tragedies, romances, cruelties, ridiculousness, vanity and courage that makes
them, like us, human.
The fêted author of ‘Q&A’ has created a fascinating, if fanciful, new whodunit, writes
Bridget McNulty.
A book about a powerful man who gets away with murder (literally and figuratively) might
not seem like entertaining reading for many South Africans at the moment. But Vikas
Swarup’s second novel, Six Suspects, is nothing if not an enormously entertaining read.
It tells the story of Vivek “Vicky” Rai, the playboy devil- may-care son of the home minister
of Uttar Pradesh, and a man (it seems) who can do as he pleases, and never worry about the
consequences. Seven years earlier, he murdered a bartender when she refused to serve him a
13
drink at a trendy restaurant in New Delhi. Now he himself has been murdered — and there
are six suspects.
Arun Advani, India’s well- known investigative journalist, introduces the book, and leads the
reader into three in-depth sections: “Suspects”, “Motives” and “Evidence”.
From here, the suspects take over. We are introduced to the bureaucrat, Mohan Kumar (who
is possessed by the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi); the actress, screen diva Shabnam Saxena; the
tribal character, Eketi, on his first visit to the mainland; Munna Mobile, the thief; home
minister Jagganath Rai (and father to Vicky Rai) and lastly, Larry Page, the American (and
not the founder of Google).
Through these six suspects, the story unfolds, and it is a story that is as complex as it is
multilayered, as textured as it is colorful.
Vikas Swarup’s Six Suspects is not an ordinary murder mystery. Vicky Rai is as awful a
reprobate as an author could create—”the poster boy for sleaze in this country.” Insider
trading, defrauding investors, bribery and tax evasion are just the beginning. He lacks any
remorse for having run down six people while drunkenly driving the swanky BMW his father
gave him for a birthday present. As a follow-up, he kills two bucks on a wildlife sanctuary.
Finally, in a crowded bar, he shoots a beautiful bartender named Ruby Gill point-blank in the
face, angry that she wouldn’t serve him another drink after closing time.
If there’s anything Vicky excels at, it’s escaping punishment. After a five-year trial, he’s
found not guilty of this grotesque crime. But while celebrating his acquittal at a blowout
bash, he is shot to death. The police seal the scene and search all the guests, identifying six
suspects, each of whom is carrying a different gun.
And it’s here that Swarup’s story takes off. Not only does he reject the standard structure for
a crime novel, there is also no traditional detective or brave hero to be found. Rather than
planting clues and flashing red herrings, he tells the tale of each of the suspects—a career
bureaucrat suffering from split personality disorder (half the time he believes he’s Mahatma
Gandhi), a scary-naïve American tourist who’s come to India thinking he’s getting a mail-
order bride, a cell phone thief, a tribesman from the Andaman Islands, a sexy Bollywood
actress, and Vicky’s own father.
Swarup has taken an ambitious step with this book, and it’s a fascinating and complex read,
as well as a journey through diverse views of modern India. Rich with culture, this novel
should not be left out of any holidaymaker’s suitcase.
14
Tasha Alexander is the author of And Only to Deceive. Her latest novel, Tears of Pearl, will
be published in September.
Ayo Onatade is an avid reader of crime and mystery fiction. She has been writing reviews,
interviews and articles on the subject for the last 12 years; with an eclectic taste from
historical to hardboiled, short stories and noir films
This is the second novel to be written by Indian diplomat, Vikas Swarup and is based on true
life events. It is a multi layered story about crime and corruption in modern day India.
Swarup’s first novel, Slumdog Millionaire has been nominated for 10 Oscars and 12
BAFTAS, and has already won 4 Golden Globes.
Vivek (better known as Vicky) Rai the well known playboy son of the Indian Cabinet
Minister- the Home Minister of Uttar Pradesh murders a young waitress Ruby Gill at a
fashionable restaurant in New Delhi. The reason? Because she refuses to serve him a drink.
At his trial he is acquitted and he decides to throw a party at his farmhouse. However he gets
his comeuppance when he is murdered at the party. When the police search all the guests six
of them are found to be carrying guns. Who are these six guests? As the reader plays
detective we follow Arun Advani India’s best known investigative journalist as he tries to get
to the bottom of the murder. The six potential suspects are a crooked official, an American
tourist, a stone-age tribesman, a sexy Bollywood actress, a young mobile thief and an
ambitious politician.
Each suspect has three chapters each under the headings Suspects, Motives and lastly,
Evidence where everything is revealed. Each of the suspects has a reason to kill Raj! But
which one actually did the deed?
This is a very interesting and well- written story. With sharply drawn characters and strong
plotting with a sense of place that makes you feel as if you are walking along the streets of
India. Six Suspects is in fact very reminiscent of Dorothy L Sayers’s Five Red Herrings. The
way in which the story is told is very ingenious and it is interesting to go along for the ride as
the culprit is slowly but surely revealed. It is also an perceptive look at the heart and spirit of
contemporary India. The author’s finely conventional and fearless plotting will no doubt
please those readers who enjoy classic mystery novels. Don’t expect gory and blood in Six
Suspects because there is none. What you do have is an inventive whodunnit that is certainly
worth more than a second look
By Nalini Priyadarshni
If your first novel is turned into a movie which takes the world by storm and ends up with 8
Oscars in its booty, coming up with another can be quite intimidating. But luckily by the time
15
Slumdog Millionaire, based on Vikas Swarup’s first novel, Q& A sent the whole world in
frenzy with the stupendous success, his second novel had already hit the bookstores. The only
thing he now has to deal with is the sky rocketing expectations of the readers.
By the time one reaches at the bottom of the first page of his second novel, Six Suspects, one
knows that Vikas Swarup does not need to lose his sleep worrying about the reaction of the
readers. This novel is entirely different from his earlier work in its premise. It’s the story of
six individuals coming from diverse back grounds who are present at a party where a murder
takes place. Out of hundreds of people present there, they become the suspects as each one of
them is in possession of a gun. They all have a perfectly plausible reason to murder Vicky
Rai, a play boy who was hosting the party to celebrate his acquittal from a murder case that
had caught fancy of the whole nation.
Out of these six suspects, a retired bureaucrat named Mohan Kumar is grappling with
possession by a spirit which takes over his body at the most unexpected times while the
second suspect is a celluloid goddess, Shabnam Saxena whose stardom has become her
nemesis. Larry Page, an American who had flown to India to marry his internet girlfriend
becomes the third suspect while the fourth suspect is none other than Vicky’s father, Home
Minister of Uttar Pradash, Jagannath whose political career comes under doldrums thanks to
Vicky’s brazen misdemeanors.
Munna Mobile is the next suspect who is a petty thief but is propelled into the world of rich
and mighty after an inadvertent encounter with pretty lass in a discotheque, following an
unexpected windfall. Last suspect is a tribal Eketi Onge belonging to a dying tribe
overwhelmed by the intrusion of the so called civilized Indians responsible for their welfare.
He leaves the shores of Andamans to bring back the sacred stone stolen from the tribe by a
welfare officer and though initially fascinated by the glitter of modernism; he soon gets
disillusioned and wants to return home.
Many readers and critics have compared this novel to Agatha Christie’s works which could
be due to the eye for the detail that Vikas Swarup has. But this comparison is a gross injustice
to the novel as it’s not just a whodunit, but a multifaceted, richly textured tale of India as seen
through the eyes of assorted characters. This book has a far wider canvass than was ever
attempted by Agatha Christie.
The book is a pure entertainer and even the most mundane and sorrowful moments in the
lives of the characters have been enliven by the interesting observation and witty comments
made by them. The first person narrative has its added advantage as the style of narrative is as
varied as the characters themselves. Larry Page’s narrative generously sprinkled with the
typical American slangs is a huge contrast to the telephonic conversations of Jagannath that
are used to take the narrative forward. But the real fun is in watching the development of
different story lines and then their mergence into one great dénouement.
16
Another factor that not only adds to the virtuosity of the narrative but also makes it sound
hauntingly familiar to an average Indian is the inclusion of epoch making events of post
modern Indian history in the narrative. Whether it is Union Carbide tragedy or Jessica Lal
murder case or Sanjeev Nanda BMW hit and run case, they all are camouflaged and added to
the plot and contribute towards making the narrative multi layered, and rich.
Six Suspects is a heady mixture of comedy, pathos, tragedy, humor rolled into a classic
whodunit. It’s impossible to put this book down once you start reading this riveting page
turner that provides first hand insight into contemporary India.
THE BOOKSELLER
Fascinating, multi-voiced slice of Indian life across the castes [with political corruption at its
centre]…a lovely, lovely book.
Vikas Swarup first garnered popularity because of the success of Q & A, his first novel which
Slumdog Millionaire was based on. Now for a much-anticipated comeback, Six Suspects, his
second novel is likely to meet, if not outdo the success of Q & A.
Vikas Swarup is an extraordinary novelist, very skilled in representing his characters and
vividly delving into each one’s idiosyncrasies that contribute to the development of the plot.
Six Suspects has a very gritty central plot and a development that won’t let you put it down.
The story revolves in a murder mystery with a complicated twist. A playboy son of a
prominent public figure murdered a waitress because she didn’t take his order. But years later
he was also found dead at a party he threw to celebrate his acquittal. There are six suspects
for his murder, each of them just as likely to have killed their host. The interesting part about
the six suspects is there occupations; a corrupt public servant; ambitious politician; a
tribesman; an American tourist; a Bollywood sex symbol; and a cell phone thief. The
investigation that follows the murder is most-riveting and showcases contemporary India.
Vikas Swarup does a wonderful job at this second novel, which deserves more attention than
what it’s currently been getting. Six Suspects is not just about a murder mystery, but takes on
a deeper criticism about India how murder operates, and murderers get served. Six Suspects
by Vikas Swarup is definitely two thumbs up and worthy of a standing ovation for another
job well done.
YOU can’t read Malaysian books all the time, of course; you will go bonkers! Although our
publishing output is more varied than our news – microwaving the Cold War yet again? Are
we still wondering if theocrats can be liberal? – it’s good to take the occasional break.
Let us go to India! Just as The Book of Batik concerns us even though it was entirely about
Indonesia, we also owe great debts to India. Our national language and royal customs, to pick
just two obvious examples, would be very rudimentary indeed without motifs from the
Motherland.
Luckily for us, Six Suspects is an absolute delight. The only Malaysian novel I know of that
comes close to its madcap invention and satirical outrage is Brian Gomez’s Devil’s Place.
It’s much longer and more sprawling than Vikas Swarup’s famous debut Q & A (filmed as
Slumdog Millionaire, which I still haven’t seen) but it’s yet another diverting Technicolor
romp through a country whose colour and contradictions make our own national dramas seem
terribly pallid in comparison.
Q & A had as its hero an orphan whose origins (unlike in other novels about orphans) we
never discover. He also chooses a name that is part Muslim, part Hindu and part Christian, so
he can literally be anything he wants. It was a tightly coiled story whose humor initially
seems too cutesy, but which gripped and charmed way before its fairy-tale ending.
Six Suspects is a murder mystery but instead of following a detective around, we hang around
with the five men and one woman of the title. The corpse is Vicky Rai, a young man who’s
so corrupt and despicable that the question isn’t “Who killed him?” but “Who wouldn’t want
to kill him?”
The cast of characters, with their various tangled motives, is delightfully improbable but we
willingly surrender because Swarup knows how to keep us keen. There’s a boozy industrialist
who seems to get possessed by the spirit of Gandhi; a self-absorbed but erudite Bollywood
actress; a tribal man from one of the earliest civilisations on earth; a slow-witted American
who was conned into coming to India; Rai’s father, the Home Minister who’s already
bumped off many others; and (the character most similar to Q & A’s Ram Mohammad
Thomas) a petty thief who discovers a suitcase with literally more money than he can count.
People are either on the make, on an impossible quest or hiding something, sometimes all at
the same time. The template for the Western comic crime caper was perfected by Elmore
Leonard, but the master’s laconic style is here, wedded to a deliberately overburdened and
over-determined plot that teases and twists and has not one, but three false endings.
Swarup, a career diplomat who writes in English, must be very aware of the perceptions that
outsiders have of India. He deliberately crams in as many of these recognisable elements as
possible – political assassins, eunuchs, religious terrorists, caste discrimination, holy
pilgrimages, bomb blasts, call-centre operators, mystics, and even Bhopal victims. What
18
saves us from a case of the dreaded “Delhi belly” is his humane vision, confident mimicry
and unflagging humor.
The solution to the murder is more than just clever; it’s cathartic in a way the genre rarely
sees.
We in Malaysia might have a narrower palette to work with, but aside from Devil’s Place I
am confident we will come up with our own entertainments. All it takes is for a talented
writer to peruse the news everyday… and get very, very annoyed.
EVEN though Swarup admitted to this book not being an easy write, it is an easy and
gripping read. His brand of cleverly interweaving stories held by one long thread, in his first
hit Q & A, is echoed in this one. His neat style of embroidering with clever use of language is
once again evident.
A crime story, this one opens with the notorious son of a high-profile Minister shot dead by a
guest at his own glitzy party. Guests include six displaced characters each with a gun in their
possession.
Believe me, you will be seduced to guess who is the murderer all throughout as the lives of
the six are told in turn. While that unravels, Swarup once again paints a picture of life in India
in the background.
Meanwhile, India’s wiliest investigative journalist decides to nail the murderer. Slowly, an
amazing and touching tale unfolds. The ending is unpredictable.
My advice is, keep a day free for this read. Turn off the phone, brew your favourite cuppa.
You should read this one in a day. The characters leap up and sweep you into their dramas.
A great read, do try it. The playboy son of a cabinet minister is murdered at his own party.
Six guests could, and indeed had reason to do it. We follow the background, in first persons,
to all six, culminating in the unravelling of a complicated plot. The suspects range from
Bollywood superstar to street urchin and each presents a fascinating slice of Indian life. I
loved this book. Intelligent, full of political corruption, dirty dealing, innocent folk caught up
in extraordinary circumstances, it is exciting, witty, satirical, pensive and the most enormous
fun. The author’s first novel, Q & A, is filmed as Slumdog Millionaire. I’ve not seen the film
but do highly recommend the book. It’s wonderful.
Vikas swarup’s second novel Six Suspects is anything but pure fiction. It is compellingly
written, with each twist and turn in the murder plot resonating news, events and the chaos of
modern-day life in India.
Swarup, an (evidently) talented and rather quiet officer in the Indian Foreign Service, is said
to have conceived of this book while posted in South Africa. It is an intense mix of
occurrences in India, with the author not hesitating to use names, places and associations that
are near-fact. There is a TV news diva who goes by the name of Barkha Das, there is
Mukhtar Ansari, there is a “corrupt home minister” who operates in Uttar Pradesh and whose
son Vicky Rai bears a close resemblance to the accused in the infamous Jessica Lall case.
There is even a touch of Salman Khan in Vicky Rai who has shot two black bucks and whose
speeding car runs over people. There are images from the film industry, its seamy side and
secretaries who run the lives of cinestars and eventually decamp with all of their employers’
wealth.
The novel is the story of what happens between two parties. It begins with young bartender
Ruby Gill being shot dead by a guest wanting another drink after the bar is closed, and ends
with the murderer Vicky Rai being shot dead as he holds a party to celebrate his acquittal
seven years later. The murder mystery remains a thriller down to the last page.
All in all, Six Suspects is topical, pacy and full of characters and incidents one can identify
with.
Quirky, clever, meticulous crafting, humorous, grounded in everyday India. Vikas Swarup’s
first novel, Q&A, established his mastery over these aspects. And they have been reinforced
by his second novel, Six Suspects. Drawing from the rough and tumble of Indian society, the
satire leads up to the tale from the eyes of six suspects who were all found with weapons on
the night Vicky was murdered in his farmhouse as he celebrated his acquittal for being tried
in a case of running over six homeless vagrants in a BMW. Swarup leads us through many a
low in public India’s contemporary life as politicians, bureaucrats, actors, wannabes, even
tribals and tourists are caught up in a vortex of conceit and silence
In the last hundred years and more, Indians have made impressive contributions to world
literature. No Indian, however, has ever had the distinction of producing a worldwide best-
selling thriller.
Till date, none of us have been able to generate the particular magic that arises from the
intellectual ability to weave a gripping plot, the emotional sensitivity to create realistic and
likeable characters, the skill to build up suspense, and the sophistication of flawless idiom,
which results in the resounding “Give me more!” of an enormous population of readers round
the globe.
20
Vikas Swarup’s first book of fiction, Q&A, the story of how the beguilingly named Ram
Mohammad Thomas, a penniless waiter, became the biggest quiz show winner in history,
came close. Five years later, his new novel Six Suspects is a murder mystery that gives the
pace of a thriller to social commentary.
Critics of Q&A used the word “trite” – and they may well apply it to Six Suspects. However,
it did to me something no book has done for 20 years and more – kept me up till 3 am.
Amid mind-glazing hot suspense, Six Suspects addresses ground-level issues of our culture
including corruption and evil in politics, our preening world of glamour, the hypocrisy of
high-profile godmen, the Indian government’s colonisation and subsequent ruin of
indigenous tribes, the strivings of our newly emergent middle class, the role of our journalists
in shaping our civilisation and even briefly features the “servant problem”, the Bhopal gas
tragedy, and Guatanamo Bay. In all, making it a book I will hang on to for my grandchildren
to read, as something that will sustain their interest while it gives them a vivid glimpse of the
world in which I once lived.
The author of Slumdog Millionairehas another blockbuster of a story that begins with a
murder, then delves into the lives and motives of the six suspects. The reader becomes
intimately involved with each suspect while being treated to an eye-opening account of life in
India.
BOOKLIST
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
After reading and loving Swarup’s first novel Q&A (also known as Slumdog Millionaire), I
was incredibly excited to check out his second tale, also set in India. The book, which does
not come out in the states until October, takes us through the streets of India yet again, in an
amazing, yet harrowing tale of death and, maybe, redemption.
Vicky Rai, the son of a high-profile Minister, was found shot dead in his farmhouse on March
23 during a very glamourous party. Although seemingly a sad event, the party was to
celebrate Rai’s aquittal from a murder he committed. This was the 3rd time he got away with
murder. Apparently, someone didn’t like that.
At the party, six suspects were found with guns. The six people included Mohan Kumar, a
crooked businessman who might have been possessed by noneother than Ghandi; Larry Page,
a Texan tricked into going to India to marry a mail order bride; Shabnam Saxena, a very
21
famous Bollywood actress who tries to prove that she’s more than a pretty face; Eketi, a tribal
trying to find his village’s sacred relic; Munna, an unemployed cell phone theif ; and
Jagannath Rai, the Home Minister of Uttar Pradesh and, of all things, Vicky Rai’s father.
The lives of the six suspects are told in rotation throughout the novel, leading up to the
murder. Each character has their own voice; where one character’s story is told through diary
entries, another’s is told through phone calls. Swarup is amazing at building excitement and
intrigue as each character’s tale unfolds. As you read each character’s story, you start
questioning everything. “Could they be responsible for it?” “Is it worth it?” “Can we forgive
them?”
Much like Q&A, everything comes together in the end, revealing that in one way or another,
each life is wound together like a tapestry. And then end is definitely worth it. As each
character’s story wraps up, you see in a very satsifying manner who did it, why, and how.
Much like the game of Clue, the book keeps you guessing.
Swarup has an amazing talent when it comes to describing elements. He gives an accurate, if
not terrifying at times, look at India – from the swanky houses in Delhi to the slums down the
road. For those who’ve read Q&A, there are some quick comments mentioning the
characters, which made me cheer. I love when authors do that. (If you’ve only seen the film,
you won’t get the references, sadly).
I really enjoyed Six Suspects and am excited to see what Swarup brings us next. Once the
book comes to America, I suggest checking it out if you’re interested in crime dramas, life in
India, or just really intense books that keep you up wondering what might happen next.
SECOND OPINION
Forget IBS, PMT and RSI. In literary circles, the affliction to be avoided at all costs is the
dreaded SNS, or Second Novel Syndrome. Fear of being labelled a flash in the pan one-hit
wonder has paralysed many a Papermate. And the more glowing the accolades for a debut
novel, the more pressure there is to deliver second time round. Not all writers can rise to the
challenge, but Vikas Swarup, who wowed us in 2005 with Q & A, has produced a fighting fit
second novel, Six Suspects, due for publication on 28th July. So what is his secret?
Six Suspects is a big novel in every sense of the word, and reminded me in scope of David
Mitchell’s acclaimed Cloud Atlas. While Mitchell’s book tackles a huge time period, Vikas
Swarup’s chosen remit is an ambitious slice of India’s famously vast and complex social
spectrum, taking on some big themes (power, money and identity) along the way. Like an
eagle-eyed continuity technician, he has managed to knit together a series of narratives, one
for each of the eponymous six suspects, all of which make clever references backwards and
forwards to the other suspects’ accounts. (Who says men can’t multi-task, by the way?)
It reads like a dream, but must have been painstaking to devise and construct. Painstaking but
rewarding. And crucially it’s the latter which comes across as you read the book. The whole
22
thing, even when touching on some sensitive and topical subjects, is suffused with humor. I
found myself chuckling quite a few times and imagine that Vikas had just as much fun
writing it. So maybe those displaying symptoms of SNS should take a leaf out of his book.
SNS is basically a fear of the critic’s wrath and as such, perhaps simply enjoying your own
writing (and so much so that it comes across in your work) is the best prize – and the best
antidote.
There's a caste system even in murder. Seven years ago, Vivek 'Vicky' Rai, the playboy son of the
Home Minister of Uttar Pradesh, murdered Ruby Gill at a trendy restaurant in New Delhi simply
because she refused to serve him a drink. Now Vicky Rai is dead, killed at his farmhouse at a
party he had thrown to celebrate his acquittal. The police search each and every guest. Six of them
are discovered with guns in their possession. In this elaborate murder mystery we join Arun
Advani, India's best-known investigative journalist, as the lives of these six suspects unravel
before our eyes: a corrupt bureaucrat; an American tourist; a stone-age tribesman; a Bollywood
sex symbol; a mobile phone thief; and an ambitious politician. Each is equally likely to have
pulled the trigger. Inspired by actual events, Vikas Swarup's eagerly awaited second novel is both
a riveting page turner and an insightful peek into the heart and soul of contemporary India.
This is the second novel to be written by Indian diplomat, Vikas Swarup and is based on true life events. It is a
multi layered story about crime and corruption in modern day India.
Vivek (better known as Vicky) Raj the well known playboy son of the Indian Cabinet Minister- the Home Minister
of Uttar Pradesh murders a young waitress Ruby Gill at a fashionable restaurant in New Delhi. The reason?
Because she refuses to serve him a drink. At his trial he is acquitted and he decides to throw a party at his
farmhouse. However he gets his comeuppance when he is murdered at the party. When the police search all the
guests six of them are found to be carrying guns. Who are these six guests? As the reader plays detective we follow
Arun Advani India's best known investigative journalist as he tries to get to the bottom of the murder. The six
potential suspects are a crooked official, an American tourist, a stone-age tribesman, a sexy Bollywood actress, a
Each suspect has three chapters each under the headings Suspects, Motives and lastly, Evidence where everything
is revealed. Each of the suspects has a reason to kill Raj! But which one actually did the deed? This is a very
interesting and well- written story. With sharply drawn characters and strong plotting with a sense of place that
makes you feel as if you are walking along the streets of India. Six Suspects is in fact very reminiscent of Dorothy
L Sayers's Five Red Herrings. The way in which the story is told is very ingenious and it is interesting to go along
23
for the ride as the culprit is slowly but surely revealed. It is also an perceptive look at the heart and spirit of
contemporary India. The author's finely conventional and fearless plotting will no doubt please those readers who
enjoy classic mystery novels. Don't expect gory and blood in Six Suspects because there is none. What you do
have is an inventive whodunnit that is certainly worth more than a second look.