Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line

Nine-year-old Jai drools outside sweet shops watches too many reality police shows and considers himself to be smarter than his friends Pari and Faiz. When a classmate goes missing Jai decides to use the crime-solving skills he has picked up from TV to find him. He asks Pari and Faiz to be his assistants and together they draw up lists of people to interview and places to visit. But what begins as a game turns sinister as other children start disappearing from their neighbourhood. Jai Pari and Faiz have to confront terrified parents an indifferent police force and rumours of soul-snatching djinns. As the disappearances edge ever closer to home the lives of Jai and his friends will never be the same again. Drawing on real incidents and a spate of disappearances in metropolitan India Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is extraordinarily moving flawlessly imagined and a triumph of suspense. It captures the fierce warmth resilience and bravery that can emerge in times of trouble and carries the reader headlong into a world that once encountered is impossible to forget. Review 'A brilliant debut'Ian McEwan Man Booker Prize-winning author of Amsterdam'Storytelling at its best-not just sympathetic vivid and beautifully detailed but completely assured and deft . . . We care about these characters from the first page and our concern for them is richly repaid'Anne Enright Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Gathering'In this thrilling reading experience Deepa Anappara creates a drama of childhood that is as wild as it is intimate.Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is an entertaining wonderful debut that will earn all the acclaim it is sure to get'Chigozie Obioma Booker Prize-shortlisted author of An Orchestra of Minorities'A profoundly emphatic work of creative genius that will stay with you forever'Sonia Faleiro author of Beautiful Thing'A magnificent achievement: the endeavours of theDjinn Patrol on the Purple Line offer us a captivating world of wit warmth and heartbreak beautifully crafted through a child's unique perspective'Mahesh Rao author of Polite Society'Created from whole cloth Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is a richly textured rendition of a world little seen in Indian literature. There is no desire to smooth and tidy in fiction what is untidy in life but instead there is a pay-off for the reader in a story that is as quietly troubling as it is convincing'Mridula Koshy author of If It Is Sweet and Not Only the Things That Have Happened'A stunningly original tale . . . I stayed up late every night until I finished reluctant to part from Deepa Anappara's heart-stealing characters'Etaf Rum New York Times bestselling author of A Woman Is No Man'Deepa Anappara is a writer of considerable talent. This is a wonderful energetic book filled with humour and pathos. Charming sensitive and deeply moving'Nathan Filer Costa Prize-winning author of The Shock of the Fall'The children at the heart of this story will stay with you long after you turn the last page . . . a wonderful debut'Christie Watson Sunday Times bestselling author of The Language of Kindness'A moving and confident novel about the preciousness of life. The storytelling is distinctive and immersive'Nikesh Shukla author and editor of The Good Immigrant'Extraordinarily good deeply moving and thought-provoking with brilliant characterization. A very important book'Harriet Tyce author of Blood OrangeThere's an almost Harry Potter-ish vibe to the relationship among the three intrepid kids and Jai's voice is irresistible: funny vivid smart and yet always believably a child's point of view. Anappara paints all of her characters even the lost ones with deep empathy and her prose is winningly exuberant. But she also brings a journalist's eye to her story one that is based on the shocking numbers of children who disappear from Indian cities every dayKirk