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“Lavish and sexy…An engrossing narrative, entertaining even when it meanders, and drenched with enough local color to tint the saris for the most extravagant Bollywood production number.”
— New York Times Book Review
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“A remarkable and clever debut.”
— Washington Post
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“Bombay comes alive in these pages…Wild, extravagant…Unpredictable.”
— Newsday
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“A riveting murder mystery…Complex and vastly entertaining…The toughest, most sympathetic heroine since Smilla’s Sense of Snow.”
— Harper’s Bazaar
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“A brainy thriller.”
— Entertainment Weekly
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“Forbes pushes the thriller genre to its limits…Enormous fun and truly chilling.”
— Philadelphia Inquirer
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“Thrilling…A breathtaking read.”
— San Diego Union-Tribune
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“[An] intricate literary thriller suffused with exotic atmosphere…[A] bombardment of rich detail that makes the story interesting, augmented by Forbes’ striking imagery and a progression of colorful and eccentric characters.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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“What happens when the glitzy world of moviemaking Bombay meets the gritty conventions of film noir? With luck, something like this dazzlingly ambitious novel…Crackling with wordplay and allusion, and set against a city that resembles nothing so much as a stage set under construction, the hyperliterate Bombay Ice sports influences ranging from Shakespeare to Sunset Boulevard, chaos theory to Raymond Chandler. In between meditations on alchemy, entropy, and the science of weather, Forbes constructs an intricate story charged with all the tension of the coming monsoon. The result is never less than interesting.”
— Amazon.com editorial review
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“This brilliantly written novel poses philosophical questions about man and nature while treating mysticism, folklore, ancient remedies, and methods of murder. Its characters, perfectly delineated and believable, lure readers into a story that recalls Rumer Godden. Give your patrons a literary treat. Buy this one.”
— Library Journal
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“Forbes keeps it humming, in a lively narrative whose really rather formidable intellectual content …is agreeably leavened by good old melodramatic standbys like a looming monsoon, a cobra poised to strike, and numerous hairbreadth escapes…Top-notch entertainment.”
— Kirkus Reviews
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“Top-notch entertainment.”
— Kirkus Reviews
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“Be prepared to brush up your Shakespeare—and your Ovid, your W. H. Auden, and your history of films from Alfred Hitchcock to Mira Nair. Forbes’ brilliant thriller and literary tour de force is densely packed with allusions, echoes, parallels, metaphors, and references…This entertains, absorbs, and at times makes your blood run cold.”
— Kliatt