First published 2021
Nine-year-old Jai lives in a tin-roofed settlement at the end of the Purple metro line, where cardamom scents mix with sizzling oil and smog blocks the sun. He can see the city's glittering towers from his doorway, though his mother cleans those same buildings for work. Jai thinks he's smarter than his friends Pari and Faiz, despite her better grades and his actual job. When a classmate disappears, Jai decides his crime show knowledge makes him the perfect detective. He recruits Pari and Faiz as assistants to interview suspects and search locations. Their investigation starts as a game but turns dangerous when more children vanish from the neighborhood. The three friends face frightened parents, uninterested police, and whispered stories about djinns stealing souls. As the disappearances creep closer to their own families, Jai must navigate an unfair adult world that threatens everything he knows. The case will change his understanding of his community forever.
Genres: mystery, crime, contemporary, social-issues, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: amateur-sleuth, found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: India, Purple Line
Period: 21st Century
384 pages · Paperback · Random House Trade Paperbacks