Deepa Anappara: Djinn Patrol on the purple line,

Chatto & Windus, UK, 9781784743093, C format paperback

 

The quirky title of “Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line” led me to pick up this unusual debut novel by former journalist Deepa Anappara.  She has worked as a reporter in India before moving to England and in that capacity was confronted by facts of hundreds of children disappearing every day without any investigation by the Indian police every being launched.  Wondering what might have become of these children who mostly came from very poor backgrounds, she decided to write a novel telling their story through the eyes of endearing nine year old Jai whose voice gives this novel a special feeling.  

Her narration made me feel like reading a YA novel at 

times, particularly during the first few chapters but this feeling disappeared towards the middle of the book when the novel becomes more serious and darker. Jai and his friends Pari, a very smart girl, and Faiz, a Muslim boy live with their families in dirt poor circumstance in an Indian slum/basti. When two of their school friends disappear and not one missing report filed by their parents leads to a search by the police,  Jai, whose life dream is to become a detective, convinces his friends to start their own investigation. Very soon they find themselves in dangerous, dark circumstances before Jai's life in particular is affected dramatically. 

Deepa Anappara’s  decision of choosing a format by letting a nine year old boy narrate the story, her vivid description of the harsh life in an Indian slum and blending in the voices of those who are about to go missing,  makes this such a stand out, captivating debut novel. The last third of the book in particularly had me glued to my chair. Spoiler alarm: there is no Bollywood happy ending.

Liz Moore: Long Bright River, 9781786331632, trade paperback, Hutchinson UK/Penguin Random House, available now,

German edition: Long Bright River, CH Beck, hardback,

 

Liz Moore’s “Long Bright River” is set in Kensington, a part of Philadelphia heavily populated by addicts in search of heroin or other substances, once a respectable neighborhood. The author has done neighborhood work there and her familiarity with the people living in this part of town makes this novel and the characters in it so very authentic.

“Long Bright River" is at times dark and heart wrenching, part crime fiction but mostly a story of two siblings, Kacey and Mickey Fitzpatrick, who grew up in rough circumstance with little love apart from the intimacy and bond they had between each other.  To toughen them up for the unfairness of life was the prime goal of their grandmother Gee, leaving little room for affection in her household where they grew up after their mother died, their father disappeared and where money was always tight.  The two sisters could not be more different in character: Mickey, shy, introverted, very smart , responsible, always protecting Kacey, eventually choosing a career as a police officer and raising a child as a single mother; Kacey a dare devil, outspoken, with a track record of bad man ending up on skid row as a heroin addict and prostitute.  The sisters haven’t spoken to each other for years but Mickey keeps track of her whereabouts on her patrol. When Kacey disappears after the murder of a heroin addicted young prostitute and someone Mickey knows from their childhood is also found murdered, she goes in frantic search of her sister as the killer clearly has it in for addicted prostitutes.  I will not be a spoil sport, but the solving of the murder actually plays a minor part in the novel, the history of the Fitzpatrick family and the unravelling of family secrets makes this such an intense and often almost painful, realistic read.  I like Liz Moore’s clean, clear cut prose which fits with the plot.