The Third Squad: A Noir Novel

(Paperback)

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The Third Squad is an arresting, ripped-from-the-headlines noir novel that deftly explores how in recent decades, to ostensibly combat the rising tide of criminality in Mumbai's underworld, the Indian Police Service has carried out many hundreds of extrajudicial assassinations of suspected criminals. Karan, a sharpshooter dispensed with dishing out this peculiar blend of vigilante justice, has a difficult choice to make: should he continue to follow orders from his superiors, regardless of their moral standing, or should he take matters into his own hands and do what he believes to be right

Reviews

The Third Squad enveloped me in Mumbai, in its strangeness even to people who call it home. Each of the many odd but totally real characters who populate this book shines a light on the city and on one another. It's a page-turner, but as I got closer to the end I slowed down because I didn't want to have to leave this world.
--S.J. Rozan, author (as Sam Cabot) of Skin of the Wolf

Against a backdrop of debilitating poverty, ancient religion, staggering wealth, and corruption, Mumbai comes alive in The Third Squad as the perfect storm for twenty-first-century noir. Driving this absolutely compelling tale is Karan, a police sharpshooter who is essentially a trained assassin. Initially distanced from his own actions by both Asperger's syndrome and Old World devotion to authority, he's ultimately forced to reconcile personal morality with obedience in a grim new age of blind opportunism.
--Tim McLoughlin, author of Heart of the Old Country

Author Bio

V. Sanjay Kumar runs an art gallery and writes about art for various magazines. His two previous novels--Artist, Undone and Virgin Gingelly--take place in the bustling cities of Mumbai and Chennai (where Kumar grew up), exploring the fringes of middle-class life there. The Third Squad is his most recent novel.