THIS IS AN Indian novel that breaks the mould. Forget misty-eyed descriptions of Kashmir’s lush mountains and shimmering lakes, even though all the action unfolds there. There is no magic realism and no nostalgic looking back to British or Mughal empires, nor even bitter recriminations against them. This is a loud, clattering, twenty-first-century war novel in which drugs, sex, torture, espionage and death are key elements in a wacky, zesty narrative.

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