A review by deedireads
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara

adventurous emotional mysterious sad slow-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads

TL;DR REVIEW:

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is a moving story about tragedy and class in India. The plot moves slowly, but it sparkles with character and voice.

For you if: You like character-driven novels that confront reality and aren’t afraid of grief.

FULL REVIEW:

“We need ghosts more than anyone else, maybe. Because we are railway station boys without parents and homes. If we are still here, it is only because we know how to summon ghosts at will.”

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line was longlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize, which is what landed it in my lap. This is exactly why I love reading literary prize lists — they help me read books that I might have taken years to prioritize otherwise. I really liked Djinn Patrol, and I’m glad I read it.

Inspired by real events, the book takes place in a metropolitan area of India, primarily in a sort of slum neighborhood where the main character, a young boy named Jai, lives. When one of his classmates goes missing — and then more and more children start to disappear — Jai summons all his knowledge from watching police shows and recruits his two best friends to help him solve the case. This takes them all over the city, giving readers the opportunity to witness and reflect on issues of class, education, policing, Islamophobia, mob mentality, family, grief, and more.

This book is beautifully written, and it’s a particular triumph in character and voice. Jai is such a vivid narrator, one we love implicitly and root for vigorously. We see his neighborhood and journey through eyes wide open — as we read, we truly are him in a way that not all first-person novels achieve.

I did think that the pacing was a bit slow, and I spent time wondering what the purpose of different scenes was. I think that’s because I really expected it to be driven more by the novel’s central mystery of the missing children. And indeed, whenever I got to one of the chapters that showed what had happened to them right before they were snatched, I became a lot more invested. But by the end, I realized that even though it’s a mystery, it’s really more about setting and character than plot.

I may reread this someday; I think it’s the kind of book that will give you a little bit more every time you read it.



TRIGGER WARNINGS:
Alcoholism; Kidnapping; Child abuse; Death of a child / grief; Islamophobia
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