Black River - Nilanjana Roy - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Nilanjana Roy

GENRE: Literary fiction, Crime noir.

RATING: 3.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: #OwnVoices Indian noir covering some tough topics. Beautifully written prose, well-developed plot, predictable as a mystery, somewhat over the top in social commentary. Not to be read as a thriller. Check out the content warnings!

Story Synopsis:

2017. On the outskirts of Delhi lies a nondescript (fictional) village named Teetarpur, known for nothing until one of its children, an eight-year-old named Munia, is found dead, hanging from the branch of a jamun tree. The suspicion falls upon Mansoor, a half-crazed nomad who wanders through the village. Munia’s father, the widowed Chand, wants revenge and doesn’t trust the law to deliver justice.

Local inspector Ombir Singh is left with the task of doing justice to Munia and Chand, but with pressure from the wealthy in the village and his own bosses in Delhi, will he be able to settle the case to everyone’s happiness?

The story comes to us in limited third person perspective of various characters.

Note: The book is marketed as a literary thriller, which is 50% accurate. The ‘literary’ tag is justified in how the author focusses on the individual characters and helps us know their personality through the detailed character build-up. The poetic writing also merits this tag. But a thriller this is not, in any sense of the word. It has elements of police procedural, but the overall feel is more like a noir.

Bookish Yays:

😍 The setting – gritty, raw, real! Never have I seen an Indian village come so alive in fictional pages. The prose infuses the locations with a dark beauty.

😍 The initial few chapters – Oh my God! I was left speechless at how soon the scene turned from routine to horrifying without resorting to overt brutality.

😍 So many impressive morally grey characters! While some characters still fit within the conventional stereotypes, most of the main characters have enough depth to leave us wondering whether to root for them or shun them. Munia’s father Chand, Chand’s friend Rabia, butcher Badshah Miyan, Ombir Singh, his assistant Bhim Sain and the Delhi police guy (forgot his name!) stand out for their vividity and complexity.

😍 Through Badshah Miyan’s track, the story covers the life of the butcher community in Delhi. While tough to read because of the brutality involved, the stark realism of these scenes will stay with me for long. I was impressed by how the author handled this delicate topic without any bias towards or against any community.

😍 While Munia barely has a role in the book courtesy her early death, I still loved her portrayal, especially her closeness with her father Chand. To see such a caring father-daughter relationship in a rural setting was refreshing.

😍 Despite being a journalist herself, the author doesn’t shy away from highlighting the callousness of TV journalists while covering “breaking news”.

😍 There are some brilliant quotes in the book.

Bookish Mixed-Bags:

😐 The structure of the novel is somewhat atypical. While the dominant plot is that of Munia’s murder and its aftermath, the narrative baton sometimes passes over to a character, and suddenly, we are shifted into the past, where we learn the character’s backstory until the present day. This abrupt jump detracts from the continuity of the current timeline. Moreover, each backstory involved some element of social commentary. This works in case of Chand’s and Ombir’s narratives, but Rabia’s, with such a detailed account of the communal tensions at Bright Dairy, doesn’t blend in well with the rest of the story. Don’t get me wrong, the social content is still somewhat accurate. But when the core plotline is about a crime, anything not contributing to this idea directly feels like a distraction.

😐 The books covers a wide range of themes: vigilante justice, religious discrimination, migrant problems, political manipulations, corruption, misogyny, class barriers, and a few more. While many of these are written well, a few felt shoved in, especially in the backstories.

😐 Guessing the identity of the killer isn’t that challenging. So this is not really a whodunit. Luckily, the noir elements were strong enough for me to be happy. But if you read this as a murder mystery or crime thriller, you might be dissatisfied.

😐 The ending, while satisfying, is somewhat “filmy”.

😐 No glossary for the Hindi words, at least not in my ARC. For me, it was still okay as I know Hindi. But some of the subtleties will be lost to those who don’t understand the language. Like, would they understand the charm of the word ‘Laadli’, the name Bhim Sain gives his pet rabbit?

(That said, knowing Hindi didn’t necessarily make my reading experience comfortable because there were some truly vulgar words included. Of course, they suited the characters mouthing the words, but the language sure made me squirm. I am used to hopping over English cuss words, but am not attuned to seeing such colourful Hindi cuss words in English fiction, so my senses were somewhat scandalised. 😄)

Bookish Nays:

😓 The present timeline was written in the past tense, but the past backstories were written in the present tense! Aiyyo - why? Why couldn’t both be in the past tense? The present tense was jarring.

Despite the issues I had with some of the writing decisions, this is still a story that will stay with me. It portrays the dirty underbelly of rural India in a compelling and genuine manner. The author’s experience as a journalist is clearly visible, and I'll keep her future works on my radar.

Recommended to those wanting to try a powerful literary crime story set in rural Indian hinterlands.

3.75 stars. (Which would easily have been 4.25 had the book only focussed on the crime-related events in the contemporary timeline and cut out those extensive backstories or reduced their length and social agenda.)

My thanks to Pushkin Press and NetGalley for the DRC of “Black River”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Content warnings: Death, murder, physical assault, sexual abuse, paedophilia, animal abuse.