![]() The prose remains clunky, at times cringe-inducingly so. “Shantaram” spanned more than 900 pages this book comes in at 873. “The Mountain Shadow” is similar to its predecessor in other ways. The story begins with Lin’s return to Mumbai from a smuggling trip we follow him through a thinly plotted litany of killings and violent encounters as he seeks to reunite with his love, Karla (also a repeat visitor from the earlier book). The book is populated by several of the same characters (notably Lin, also known as Shantaram), and it unfolds on much the same urban landscape of drug lords, corrupt police and washed-out expatriates. A sequel in a planned tetralogy of novels, it is likely to please many “Shantaram” fans. “The Mountain Shadow,” Roberts’s second novel, appears more than a decade later. The book has gone on to occupy a distinctive - and deserving - place in an emerging genre of Bombay noir. ![]() Hollywood rights were scooped up (though a film has yet to be made). ![]() ![]() The book nonetheless possessed a grittiness and vividness that helped Roberts sell four million copies around the world. ![]() Literary purists scoffed at its purple prose Indian (and many other) readers bristled at its stereotypes and cultural simplifications. Gregory David Roberts’s “Shantaram” was an unlikely publishing sensation. ![]()
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