Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup

There's a caste system even in murder. Seven years ago, Vivek 'Vicky' Rai, the playboy son of the Home Minister of Uttar Pradesh, murdered Ruby Gill at a trendy restaurant in New Delhi simply because she refused to serve him a drink. Now Vicky Rai is dead, killed at his farmhouse at a party he had thrown to celebrate his acquittal. The police search each and every guest. Six of them are discovered with guns in their possession. In this elaborate murder mystery we join Arun Advani, India's best-known investigative journalist, as the lives of these six suspects unravel before our eyes: a corrupt bureaucrat; an American tourist; a stone-age tribesman; a Bollywood sex symbol; a mobile phone thief; and an ambitious politician. Each is equally likely to have pulled the trigger. Inspired by actual events, Vikas Swarup's eagerly awaited second novel is both a riveting page turner and an insightful peek into the heart and soul of contemporary India.

I was super keen to read this after thoroughly enjoying Q&A. The premise of the story is decent, but the style ends up making the read disappointingly disjointed (although I love what he was trying, it simply didn't work for me). The one thing I did find especially entertaining was how the Indian author wrote the American character :) He uses as many cliches as possible (or at least I hope they were cliches!). It's a decent read, but no where near as brilliant as I thought his first novel was ...

and I was disappointed too by the fact that although the ending tries to tie it all up (and sorta dos in a fairly unexpected way), he didn't "complete the story" of all the characters, only the neccessary few to find out whodunnit.

ps. who knew that the author, Vikas Swarup, was India's Deputy High Commissioner to South Africa?