Longlisted for The Women's Prize for fiction this novel tells the story of Jai, a nine year old boy living in a slum village in a town in India.
When children start to go missing Jai, following what he knows from TV detectives, decides to try and find out what is going on.
The beginning of the book drew me in and although I had a few problems with the slang words at first I soon got into the story. Unfortunately the middle part of the book tended towards repetition and would have benefited from a bit of editing to maintain the pace and interest.
However the final third just flew off the pages and I couldn't put it down.
The sights and (sometimes) awful smells of the slums came vividly to life through the fantastic prose. I found myself really rooting for Jai his family and friends.
In the largest democracy in the world life and death depends on just which part of a city you are born.

If you are looking for a story with a strong plot and satisfying ending, this story is not for you. If you are interested in another viewpoint about a world of which you may know little, told through the voice of an engaging narrator that will tell you truths and break your heart - this story is for you.

Djinn Patrol meanders a fair bit, for the most part we are guided by Jai our nine-year-old schoolboy/detective, trying to find out who has been taking children in his basti. The police aren't doing much because "children go missing all the time" which is only the first time this book will sucker punch you. The other parts are narrated by children during their last hours, or others, making a living on the streets without someone to look after them - many other sucker punches there too.

This story throws a harsh light on the slums of inner-city India in a way that will rip away the blindfold from your eyes. But these people don't want your pity, they want justice for their children, safety for their families, and protection from religious bigotry.

As I said, don't come to this story for a strong mystery plot, though there is some vindication - do come to this story if you want to be a better informed human being and you want to enjoy wonderful writing and spend some time with some brilliant detectives, even if they're 9...and a dog called Samosa.

This heartbreaking book about poor children going missing from a basti (a slum district), in an Indian City will stay with me for a long time. Told mainly from the viewpoint of nine year old Jai, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line offers no cathartic ending, no neat solutions. On the occasions when the narrative was not controlled by Jai, I actually enjoyed the writing more, and, on the whole, I found this a slow read. I’m glad I stuck with it for the descriptions of life in the basti and the insight into inequality of opportunity, access to justice and education.

Thanks to Random House UK and NetGalley for the Advance Review Copy in exchange for an honest review.

If I think about my reading history, I've probably read more books set in India than any other country and I usually really enjoy Indian own voices books. When thinking about it a little more, I realise that very few have been from the point of view of a child so this was an interesting perspective.

Jai, a plucky nine-year-old boy living in the basti (slums essentially) notices fellow children are disappearing and local police don’t seem to care. Jai is a huge fan of police detective television programmes, so he and his friends decide to investigate and set off on the eponymous “Purple Line” metro to try and find out what might have happened to the other children.

The sights, sounds and smells of the basti come to life through the author’s evocative writing and she has succeeded also in capturing a child’s perspective and what their motivations and feelings might be. I also enjoyed the chapters told from the point of view of the kidnapped children and the diversity of their life experiences.

Although the book can feel quite light-hearted at times, there is some serious social commentary happening too with human trafficking, child exploitation, child labour and religious intolerance and violence all being explored. Sometimes when I was reading this book, I had to remind myself that the events were being experienced by a nine-year-old boy living in an area where a child’s life is cheap.

My main issue with the book was that after a really strong start, I felt things flagged in the middle. Usually when I start reading a book for review, I don’t read anything but that book so that I don’t get distracted or mixed up with something else I'm reading. However, I kept putting this one down and reading other books as it lost my interest in the middle section. The story is well written, and I really liked the characters but the pacing in that middle section just lost it for me.

Told through the eyes of nine year old Jai, the novel explores the daily life of people living in the slums of an Indian city, it is thought provoking and deeply moving with endearing characters. The depiction of the everyday lives and struggles of the slum dwellers are vividly described and heart rending. The author has captured brilliantly the absolute essence of that way of life.

One of Jai’s school friends has gone missing and Jai’s love of the television show, Police Patrol, convinces him that he is the one to investigate along with his friends, Pari and Faiz. Jai ventures into some of the most dangerous parts of the city; including the bazaar at night, and the railway station at the end of the Purple Line. Children, including Jai’s sister, continue to vanish and the trio observe, frightened parents and an unresponsive police force.

Whilst parts of the novel are truly heartbreaking, there is also humour and wry observations only a nine year old boy could make about the adult world around him. I cared deeply about all the characters who really came to life along with the sights, sounds and smells of the city. This is an amazing debut from Deepa Anappara.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is an intimate portrayal of the slums of India, and a detective story with a difference. Jai, nine years old, has a fascination with cop shows, so when a young boy goes missing, he elects himself chief detective and tasks his friends Pari and Faiz with assisting him. But their investigation brings no real leads, and as more and more children go missing, fear and tension mount in their community with violent clashes between Muslims and Hindus We hear Jai's viewpoint, but then the narrative switches to each of the children who have gone missing, each with their own heartbreak they were running from. A truly original and brilliantly written story, sadly based on the statistic that as many as 180 children are said to go missing in India every day

I was very excited to receive an advanced copy of 'Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line' by Deepa Anappara. The main character is Jai, a young boy living in an Indian slum with his close-knit and loving family . With his friends and using his skills gained from his obsession with crime shows, he aims to find one of his missing school mates. Through the course of the novel, Jai and his friends continue on his adventures, more children continue to go missing until it hits close to home and his life and family start to unravel.

Anappara draws our attention to the heartbreaking fact that 180 children in India go missing everyday. I found this book warm but heartbreaking and I struggled to continue at times due to the hard subject matter. I think this is an important novel to read as it draws our attention not just to the missing children but also the poor living conditions of many living in Indian.

Such an essential and timely read, looking at the cracks in society and the people who go ignored. Anappara is a master of character creation and painting places.

I will be recommending this book! Marking as 4 stars as it felt slightly like there was something missing in terms of pace and I wanted to be more engrossed than I was.

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is a tragic story about the startling reality of missing children in India. It tackles topics such as police negligence, education, and the religious and socio-economic divides of modern-day India, exploring their effects on the most vulnerable in society. It is set in a basti, or slum, and it follows 9-year-old Jai who, along with his friends, searches for a missing boy in the dangerous streets of the city.

I did like aspects of the novel but I just don’t think it was for me. Anappara’s writing was vivid and vibrant but, at some point, it started to feel repetitive which was a shame because I enjoyed the style so much at the beginning of the book. Jai’s narrative voice was interesting, and the memories of the missing children were heartbreaking, but the novel is evidently character-driven rather than plot-driven despite the concept of the novel. I thought it was going to be a proper mystery but the novel doesn’t really focus on Jai’s search for the missing child. I do think that the novel needed a stronger plot-line, just to keep the reader focused on something, but it was a very emotive story and the afterword underlines the stark reality that the novel is based on.

Overall, this was an interesting book and I think it had a lot of potential but, unfortunately, it wasn’t for me. I didn’t dislike the book and I do think that you should give it a go if the summary catches your eye but the lack of a strong plot-line left me unsatisfied.

When Bahadur, one of his classmates, goes missing, nine-year-old Jai is determined to solve this case. He has watched so many episodes of Police Patrol that he knows exactly how such a problem is to be treated. Together with his friends Pari and Faiz, he startsto investigate around Purple Line and Bhoot Bazaar. Yet, more and more children and teenagers disappear from their basti and quite obviously, the police are not willing to do anything about it. The parents get either more and more afraid of their children being the next or angry as they feel helpless and powerless.

Deepa Anappara’s novel is a brilliant mixture of an oftentimes very funny plot and an absolutely serious topic. Daily, children go missing on Delhi’s streets without anybody taking notice of it. The life of a child, especially if she or he belongs to a minority, is worth next to nothing, not even the effort to take a note on it. Diverse cultures and religious racism play an important role in this, too. Boys and girls are treated differently and offered different chances in life. Born into the wrong family, you can only count on superstition for a better life since the boundaries are clearly set.

At the beginning of the novel, I totally adored Jai and his friends. They are vividly and wonderfully portrayed. Determined to find out what happened to their friend and equipped with their knowledge from true crime TV series, they start their investigation ignoring all warnings against the dangers that lurk around the bazaar. They take their job very serious and at the same time, just as kids do, ignore the facts that they live in the same slum but come from very different backgrounds.

With the number of children who disappear rising, the novel becomes increasingly serious and loses the light-heartedness of the beginning. The way a slum works becomes gradually more visible and thus, the novel grants insight in a world which is totally unknown to me.

The whole novel is sparkling with life, the characters are quite unique and lovable and it is totally understandable why the novel has been nominated on the longlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020.

Based in the slums of India. You have 9 year old Jai who enjoys watching police/crime programmes on the tv. Suddenly children including his friends start to disappear and it appears that the local police are doing nothing about it,
Jai decided to turn detective and try to get to the bottom of where these children are going,
Told from Jais point of view.
It is well written and beautifully put together

The quirky title of “Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line” led me to pick up this unusual debut novel by former journalist Deepa Anappara. She has worked as a reporter in India before moving to England and in that capacity was confronted by facts of hundreds of children disappearing every day without any investigation by the Indian police every being launched. Wondering what might have become of these children who mostly came from very poor backgrounds, she decided to write a novel telling their story through the eyes of nine year old Jai.

Her narration made me feel like reading a YA novel at
times, particularly during the first few chapters but this feeling disappeared towards the middle of the book when the novel becomes more serious and darker. Jai and his friends Pari, a very smart girl, and Faiz, a Muslim boy live with their families in dirt poor circumstance in an Indian slum/basti. When two of their school friends disappear and not one missing report filed by their parents leads to a search by the police, Jai, whose life dream is to become a detective, convinces his friends to start their own investigation. Very soon they find themselves in dangerous, dark situations before Jai's life in particular is affected dramatically.

Deepa Anappara’s decision of choosing a format by letting a nine year old boy narrate the story , her vivid description of the harsh life in an Indian slum and blending in the voices of those who are about to go missing, makes this such a stand out, captivating debut novel. The last third of the book in particularly had me glued to my chair. Spoiler alarm: there is no Bollywood happy ending.

Beautiful writing lifts this India set novel somewhere special. For the full review go to https://joebloggshere.tumblr.com/post/190978478266/djinn-patrol-on-the-purple-line-by-deepa

I adored this book! Wee Jai is such a sweetheart. I loved the plot, characters, setting, tone and language. Deepa Anappara has taken some very sad truths and spun them into the most glorious fiction. She provides a valuable insight into a place and culture I knew little about. The book is in turns humorous, heartwarming and heartbreaking. Simply brilliant!

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is a genuine tale of life in the slums of India. Seeing the world through the eyes of 9-year-old Jai, who formed a detective group with his best friends, Pari the smart and resourceful girl and Faiz the hardworking Muslim boy, to search for the missing children in their basti. His parents work menial jobs for the hi-fi people and his sister Runu is busy training after school. As more and more children got kidnapped, Jai, Pari, and Faiz search for clues around the bazaar while trying not to get snatched themselves. Along the way, as new facts have come to light, their detective may have been useful to uncover what has been happening in their basti.

👁 ‘Yes, leave, that will be very easy for you to do,’ chachi says. ‘We’re the ones who have to be here, today and tomorrow and the day after that. This is our life you’re talking about as if it’s just some story. Do you even understand that?’ (p. 323-4) 👁

The writing style is unapologetically Indian, at first I didn’t completely understand half of the Hindi terms/phrases but I got used to them as I go—I loved the no italicisation! I feel like the narrative is remarkable because it does sound like what a 9-year-old would say and do. The last memories of the children up until they were snatched were also beautifully written. While some might find the story repetitive, it maintains the dark reality of the rampant missing children cases in India, which I think is very authentic and impactful. The disparity between the hi-fi and the basti people (caste), as well as corrupt police, ignorant religious leaders, and media indifference created a deep cleavage in the society, making the ordinary people point fingers at each other. The story also touched upon pop culture and patriarchal-rooted habits. It couldn’t have been easy to write such a rich social commentary into a fascinating fiction. My favourite part of the book is the stories/urban legend at the beginning of each part—THIS STORY WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE. By the end of the book I understood how the creative title came into being, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line. Faiz blaming the djinns who are known to snatch children, Jai obsessing over the tv show Police Patrol, and the Purple Line train which could bring them to the city, an uncharted territory. All in all, it is such a strong debut novel, I would definitely be on the lookout for Deepa Anappara’s future works.

Thank you so much Chatto & Windus for the electronic ARC through NetGalley! ♥️

DNF
The narrative style of the book made me feel too separate from what was going on and I struggled to continue reading after the first few chapters. Sadly not my cup of tea.

An inspiring dive into the Indian culture, so different from our European frame. The author take the pretext of missing children to describe the injustice of the daily life in India, and the gap between the rich and powerful and the poor living in a slum. All the little jobs they have to do to survive - selling flowers at a crossroad or bringing tea to oblivious tourists -, despised by the police and the authorities.

All of which is made even more naive and striking by taking a child's point of view, who decides to play detective to find his missing friends. His bittersweet perception of life polishes just enough the sad reality to balance poverty and solidarity, with a lot of spices on top.

The perfect book to try something new and deceptively light - the ending especially is quite moving.

I tried reading this over the past few months but I find the narrator to be incredibly annoying. While the novel portrays harrowing subject matters it also has this childish sort of humour that doesn't really do anything for me.
I was expecting this to be a magical realism type of novel but so far the story focuses on a kid who thinks he is a detective and cannot understand when it is best to keep quiet or not to prod adults.
Maybe I'm not the right reader for this novel.

A sincere thank you to the publisher, author and Netgalley for providing me an ebook copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. I enjoyed this story very much and felt like I knew each character personally due to the description of them. I enjoyed the storyline. This is not my usual genre but in this instance I am extremely pleased and grateful for opening up my mind to something totally different. Thanks again.

Told through the eyes of a nine year old boy this is a beautifully written but heartbreaking story. This has really opened my eyes to the horrors and dangers for the children living in the slum towns of India. This book could have been solely about those dangers but I feel the impact was far greater told from the viewpoint of a child trying to find what had happened to other children. There was a beautiful innocence in this book and it has captured my heart.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion.