Six Suspects, By Vikas Swarup
If a Martian sent a postcard from urban India after watching the country's highly competitive television channels, he might focus on its crime. A wealthy industrialist gets away after crushing people, asleep while he drove; an irate rich brat at a bar guns down an attractive hostess who refuses to serve him that last drink; or a Bollywood star shoots a rare animal and, when prosecuted, wonders what the fuss is all about.
Put these scandals – all real – together in one dislikeable character, Vicky Rai. Have him murdered, and create six suspects, each with a motive. There's a corrupt bureaucrat who claims to have become Mohandas Gandhi, India's founding father; a US tourist who thinks he is about to marry a pen-friend, not knowing what lies ahead; an Onge tribesman who tries to recover a stolen relic; a superficial Bollywood sex goddess who quotes Sartre; a thief who steals mobile phones and finds himself mired in something bigger than he can handle; and a politician who will stoop as low as needed to conquer (he is Rai's father). Each character has a weapon: a British Webley & Scott, an Austrian Glock, a German Walther PPK, an Italian Beretta, a Chinese Black Star pistol and a locally improvised katta – perhaps a comment on India's rapid globalisation.
If our Martian friend wrote all that, you might commend his grasp of a new language and his interest in an alien culture. But Vikas Swarup, who has written this curiosity described as a novel, is an Indian diplomat who has already published one successful novel, Q & A. Six Suspects does not need Hercule Poirot, because the crimes Swarup draws on are real.
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