The Age of Vice, Kapoor - B

                      This somewhat lengthy, successful, and already signed up by FX for a series novel is set in India in the early 21st century. This India is a hellhole of violence, hatred, caste prejudice, injustice, and mind-numbing poverty. As a child Ajay, a Dalit, is sold into captivity by his mother, who has been shunned after her husband is murdered. He is taken far from Upper Pradesh by a farmer into the mountains where he grows from a pre-teen to a young man. The only way to survive is to perform your expected services with efficiency and discretion. Over the course of his decade in the mountains, he does his usual proficient job for a group that visits every summer from the lowlands. The summer his owner dies, a lowlander tells him that he has a job waiting in New Delhi if he wishes. Ajay goes to work for Sunny Wadia, son of a noted gangster, and succeeds beyond his wildest expectations. Within a few years, he is Sunny's guard, driver, fixer, and friend. 

                       Sunny's girlfriend, Neda, is a journalist slowly drawn into his world of corruption and deceit. She and her boss view and chart the the web of corruption that the Wadia's propagate, but the 'system stops' the publication of anything. As Neda loses faith in decency and humanity, she sees one of Sunny's cronies commit a heinous vehicular murder that Ajay takes the fall for. The price of her silence is a scholarship in London and a sizable bank account. Sunny continues his love affair with whiskey and cocaine, spiraling further downward with a bit of what feels like a dead cat bounce toward decency, but one is far from confident.

                        The NYT reviewer acknowledges the commercial potential and skill of the author, but says he checked out at page 75. I wouldn't go that far, but will suggest that after the depiction of the life and story of Ajay, the novel falls precipitously. I have no real interest in the country, have never been and do not intend to ever go. If you loved India and were dying to go, the depiction of the  corruption and poverty would scare you off.