This is the same author who wrote The White Tiger.
An excellent read - well-written, the characters are wonderfully developed and explored, the descriptive writing is very evocative. The book is based around an aging co-op building in Mumbai and what happens when a real estate developer decides he wants to buy out the owners for a project. Adiga does a wonderful job of charting the the path of the people in the coop from a group of rather ordinary people to a group of murderers driven by greed. The underlying theme would seem to be how the corruption and greed of the developers creates a situation that destroys communities and families, and brings out the worst in people. It is like an unmasking of the livable surface of people's lives, the ordinary small kindnesses and grudging acceptance of foibles that make a life, a community - unmasked to reveal the ability for evil beneath that surface.
Not the first time that story has been told in the 20th or 21st century...
There are no heroes in the book. One man, Masterji, holds that role at first in the book, but he too has his mask pulled away, in part at least.
Depressing, but an excellent read.
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