Adiga, author of the highly acclaimed White Tiger, returns with this morality tale about events at a respectable, solidly middle-class building in Mumbai. The veneer of respectability and hard-earned bonhomie falls away after the residents-Hindu, Christian, and Muslim-are offered a windfall by an unscrupulous real estate developer who wants them to move. It is a credit to the author that the reader manages to keep straight the large cast of unforgettable and all-too-believable characters. One resident, retired teacher and widower Masterji, holds out purely on principle-or is it for some other reason even he doesn't understand? In the end, there are no heroes in this viper's nest of competing desires and petty jealousies, as the residents' uglier natures are gradually revealed in the face of their greed and disappointment. The swarming oceanfront metropolis of Mumbai, in various stages of development and decay, functions as a character in its own right. VERDICT You won't be able to look away as the novel hurtles toward its inevitable train wreck of a conclusion in this stunner from Adiga. [See Prepub Alert, 2/28/11.]-Lauren Gilbert, Sachem P.L., Holbrook, NY (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

*Starred Review* In this slowly coalescing yet ultimately high-stakes drama concerning the fate of an old apartment building on the swampy outskirts of seething, polluted Mumbai, Man Booker Prize winner Adiga (The White Tiger, 2008) continues his satirical inquiry into the forces at work in the new India. Dharmen Shah, an excessively ambitious developer, is hell-bent on buying out the co-op group, tearing down the tower, and erecting a monumental dream palace. His cash offer functions like a stick thrust into a beehive. Everyone is abuzz and ready to sting as some view the buyout as a godsend, while others think it's a catastrophe. In this shrewdly constructed microcosm, Adiga wryly yet tenderly portrays a spectrum of struggling individuals, among them Mrs. Puri and her Down syndrome son; social worker Mrs. Rego, whose husband abandoned the family; and retired teacher Masterji, who has lost his daughter and his wife. As the promise of wealth trumps basic decency, let alone morals, Masterji, a tragically deluded man of principle and pride, becomes the last holdout, clinging to the tower as emblematic of all that is under assault in a mindlessly greedy, materialistic world. Adiga's calculatingly detailed and elaborately suspenseful, charming yet murderous tale asks painful questions about community, the dark bewitchment of money, and all that we endanger fo. progress. . . HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Because Adiga's devilishly on-target comedy has earned him fame and a major readership, a hefty first printing and extensive promotion are set for this riveting novel of greed, conspiracy, and bloodshed.--Seaman, Donn. Copyright 2010 Booklist

When Mumbai was still Bombay, the apartment building became the new village, inhabitants growing up and old together, intertwined in one another's rhythms and needs. Tower A of the Vishram Society is one such building-both a character and the setting in this highly allegorical yet riveting novel, Adiga's first since winning the Man Booker Prize for The White Tiger. Here, Hindus, Christians, Muslims and Communists have lived together for decades, finding recent common ground in their suspicions about the new "modern" single girl in 3B. But when a developer offers each resident an astronomical sum to move out so that he might build a luxury condo, greed threatens to destroy the community. But one holdout, the teacher Mr. Masterji, is determined that knowledge and principle will protect him. Though occasionally overwritten ("The hypodermic needle of the outside world had bent at his epidermis and never penetrated"), Adiga is a master of pacing. The momentum builds as Masterji's neighbors become consumed by money, allowing Adiga to show his characters grappling with circumstances, and enduring difficult changes of heart. Adiga takes a harsh look at Mumbai's new wealth, but his characters are more than archetypes. Though the allure of capitalism has won them over, the inhabitants of Tower A are at the mercy of the rich as much as their neighbor, the teacher, is at the mercy of them. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.