Thank you to Pushkin Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Black River is billed as a thriller about a provincial Indian village rocked by the murder of a young girl and a wrongly accused man.

In some sense this is true, but it’s really more of the framing for the story on which the rest of the narrative plays out. I think that the publisher did this book a great disservice by billing it as a thriller/mystery. While the true identity of the killer isn’t revealed until the last chapters, it’s not a traditional whodunnit and it’s very low suspense. This book would slot much better into contemporary adult fiction. Readers looking for a traditional mass market thriller will not find what they’re looking for.

This book is much more a book about the corruption and apathy of rural India. The way class and religion create artificial challenges and create systems that make justice and equality very difficult. I think that the book was roughly 1/3 the murder case and 2/3 the relationships between the characters and the way the cultural and social systems have impacted them.

I think the thing that I enjoyed the most about this book was the play between the two police officer characters. They had a very pleasant dynamic and liked to see how they interacted with each other. I also liked seeing that even though they were likable, generally positive characters, they weren’t immune to the violence and corruption of the status quo.

Something that kept me from really enjoying this book was inconsistent verb tensing. At points the tense changes from chapter to chapter and it’s not always consistent with whether it’s following the scenes set in the past or the scenes in the present.

I regret to say that I wasn't able to complete reading this book. I found it difficult to read, but mainly because of the many cultural differences and names.

An absorbing story and a great read. This was my first book from the author. Looking forward to future works

A beautifully written noir! I love to read novels with a political undertone, and the social commentary in this about the Hindu-Muslim divide, the Caste system, pollution, wealth disparities and so on in India was very well done in my opinion - it fit well with the narrative and didn’t disrupt it. A perfect ending too, bittersweet just like many other aspects of this wonderfully told story.

Many thanks to Pushkin Press and NetGalley for this ARC!