This was a wonderful read. It was such a moving emotional story. While the murder of a young girl, Munia, in a remote village outside Delhi forms the thread throughout the story, it is the key characters of Chand, the bereaved father and Ombir the policeman who give real depth to this book. As they grapple with the outcomes and consequences of the tragic death, we learn so much about power and corruption and the growing intolerance of Hindus towards Muslims. It is a riveting read

Nilanjana Roy is a journalist, so it is no surprise that her crime novel Black River has much more on its mind than the horrific crime that it opens with. Roy wants to use that event to explore some of the flash points in modern India – religious intolerance, rampant development, corruption. But also to explore how despite all of those pressures people still look out for and support each other, or step outside of the box that society has tried to put them in.
Black River opens with eight-year-old Munia and her father Chand who farms a small plot of family land on the edge of the small Indian village of Teetarpur, a few hours outside of Delhi. Not long after this brief introduction Munia is killed after witnessing the murder of another woman. Munia’s body is discovered by Mansoor, a local vagrant who is immediately accused of the crime despite a lack of evidence. The local police are under pressure not just from their superiors to charge Mansoor and also from the townsfolk to release him into their custody so that they can impose their own form of justice.
Before much of the investigation happens, Roy takes readers back for a lengthy digression into Chand’s history. How he left Teetarpur as a young man and the life he made for himself in Delhi before returning. This, more than anything, provides the shape of Black River which is as interested in the villagers, the local police and their relationships as it is in the solving of the crime. Much is made, for example, of the lives of two of Chand’s Muslim friends from Delhi – the butcher Badshah who gives him a job and livelihood and Rabia the wife of his best friend – who face religious intolerance in their neighbourhoods. Roy also focusses on the lead local investigator Ombir who takes regular cash payments and other inducements from the local landowner Jolly Singh but keeps digging even while he is under pressure not to investigate.
The crime itself and its investigation lifts a rock on much that is plaguing modern India. The corruption and graft that seems to infect every part of life, the exploitation of the poor and vulnerable, the weaponisation of religion. But Roy is also alive to a sense of community - of the people who rally around and support Chand, of Ombir’s drive to find justice for Munia despite what it might do to his career prospects. And focussing on these characters Roy finds a way to bring light and hope into what is otherwise a pretty dark story.
Black River fits squarely within the global phenomenon of ‘rural crime’, which has been a calling card for many Australian authors. And as usually in this type of crime novel, the small town setting is used as a microcosm of larger issues affecting the country as a whole but in a way that readers can grab hold of. Roy uses this setting extremely well and uses her journalistic eye to investigate and illuminate a range of dark and worrying issues. But she manages to do so with compassion and a deep understanding of her characters and their lives, so that even when those characters go to dark places readers will be willing to go with them.

With tinges of mystery and noir, a young girl’s murder plunges a community into grief and reveals political corruption. Roy’s writing is beautiful but unfortunately I just couldn’t connect to the story. It seemed disjointed and hard to follow at times. I really enjoyed the writing and would absolutely try another book by this author. Thanks to NetGalley and Pushkin from a chance to read and review this book!

3.5 stars.

This book is marketed as a thriller/noir, and it certainly has some of the elements of the genre: a murder, ensuing investigations, and a first suspect who is probably not the culprit. However, compared to your typical murder mystery, it puts a larger emphasis on social commentary, giving plenty of space to characters and events not directly related to the case.

What worked for me was the thoughtful and evocative writing. The novel had a distinct voice and I found myself underlining several phrases just for how beautifully written they were.
I also think the author did an amazing job in creating the settings. The village, Delhi, the river banks, the roads, all came to life on the page.

What I found less convincing was the pacing and the PoV hopping. By the end, I could certainly see and appreciate the vision, but while I was reading I got the distinct impression this book was trying to do too many things for its own good. A lot of the flashbacks, while helpful to flesh out the main characters, felt detours from the main plot. Some PoVs were way more interesting than others. For example, I didn't find Detective Ombir's sections particularly interesting, and I wish the author had given less space to him and more to others, especially Chand (the father of the victim).

I would recommend this novel less as a noir and more as a contemporary novel, especially to people who want to read more about India, and I will keep an eye on this author's career.

I loved this book and I want now to find other Nilanjana Roy's books. I loved her style of writing and the storyline of this book. It's a great page turner and you constantly want to continue reading to find out what will happen. It gives also an interesting insight into Indian's life from a specific point of view. I really enjoyed it and I look forward to read the other books of this new discovered author. Thank you Pushkin Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I found this book to be an interesting read. The murders take place early in the book. I loved the descriptions of rural India and the social commentary on religious intolerance and corruption.
The middle part of the book moves away from the murder to give the backstory of the victim's father. It describes the difficulties of the poor in Delhi and the disparity between rich and poor. While this is interesting, those looking for a gripping thriller may be disappointed.
The book is well-written and I would like to read more by this author.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an arc in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own

Although this story is set in a contemporary India, it seems quite historical in telling. The scene is set in a tiny Hindu village of Teetapur. We are first hand witnesses to the death of young girl and the wrongly accused Muslim man. The burning question is, can Inspector Ombir Singh determine who is truly the murderer, and can he convince the village?

The story is a slow burn and more literary than murder mystery (or mystery at all). The insights to life in rural India and contemporary issues that most countries face were interesting and well embedded in the story. Enjoyable ! #pushkinpress #blackriver #nilanjanaroy

This is simply superb! It's an easy five-star for me. The sense of place that the author creates is absolutely amazing. I could practically smell the air as she describes it. The beginning is quite a jolt and I wondered how the author would take it from there. It did not disappoint as we learned the back story up until the incident. The characters come alive on the pages and though to me, the perpetrator of the crime seemed obvious from the beginning, that did not detract from the story because the writing is so good and gives you the whys behind the facts. I can't wait to read more from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. It's a total winner!

Seems like an unpopular opinion but this book couldn't manage to engage me for long. It started really well. Although she had a very small role to play, I liked Munia and her bonding with her father.

The writing is good, beautiful prose, but it was a little slow for my liking and for a murder mystery. It meanders quite often. Also, it is mostly told in the present tense, which I found a little disturbing. I like stories told in the present tense, however it didn't work in this particular story.

The police are trying to build the suspects, sometimes forcibly (because they have to), dragging someone with some odd backstory. But we, the readers, know that those suspects cannot be the murderers because we have witnessed the whole scene. It might have been more interesting if the author had avoided writing the whole murder scene. So, for me, it was predictable from the very beginning.

Also —”because the doctors are upper caste and rarely want to handle dead bodies themselves.” —this sentence sounded really odd and unnecessary.

Overall, it didn't really work for me (despite the good language/writing).

Thank you very much for the copy. It seems to be getting good reviews, so I am not posting my negative review anywhere else.

BLACK RIVER is a book set in India, written by Nilanjana Roy. It is being marketed as a ”psychological thriller” and “riveting murder mystery”, but in truth it is neither. It is a fascinating look at the lives of ordinary people in an Indian village. But the narrative is marred by awkward changes in POVs and timelines.

The novel begins with the murder of Munia, an eight-year-old girl. We begin with Munia’s POV and know why she was killed; she saw someone she knew—not identified at this point—kill a woman. The narrative is a little muddled just after her murder, describing events from an omniscient POV, before it focuses on the investigation by a police officer, Ombir Singh. From the beginning, a suspect, Mansoor Khan, has been identified—strictly on the basis that he discovered the body and the fact that he is a feeble-minded drifter. Most in the small village believe he is guilty but to his credit, Ombir feels there are questions about his culpability.

Then what appears to be a police procedural, changes direction, and there is a long digression into the background of Munia’s father, Chand, using Chand’s POV. A reader who was expecting a murder mystery is suddenly transported into a story of how Chand and his friends struggled to survive in Delhi for almost two decades. This section has nothing to do with the murder of Chand’s daughter almost three decades later. The only positive about it is that for someone like me, who is interested in reading about different cultures, this is a thought-provoking look at Indian society. But readers who were expecting to read a thriller are likely to dnf at this point.

Eventually we return to the current timeline, Ombir Singh, and the murder mystery. From the beginning, shortly after Munia’s childlike ruminations of what she saw, I had one person in mind as the possible murderer, and by the 60% point I was certain he was the killer. So as a mystery, it fails.

What makes this novel worth reading is the description of: (1) life in a small Indian village; (2) difficulties that can arise as a result of arranged marriages between virtual strangers; and (3) the religious tensions between Hindus and Muslims now taking place throughout India.

It is not a literary masterpiece, given that the author changes POV style too often. It is definitely not a gripping mystery/thriller. So its (English-language) audience will be those who enjoy travelling to different parts of the world through books. I am one of those, so yes, overall I liked it. I debated between giving it a final 3 and 4-star final rating.

I wish it had been a true police procedural, with Ombir Singh as the central character, and the others (especially Chand) adding support where needed. With more emphasis on Ombir, this could have an intriguing thriller with a colourful background setting. As it is, we have a story that alternates between impressive scenes and unimportant filler. The ending chapter is extremely weak and definitely off-putting as it goes on and on, describing in detail what should have been a short epilogue. Its extensive length was the reason I ended up giving this 3.5 star novel a final 3-star rating.

“Black River” Will be released in North America on September 24, 2024.

Thanks to Pushkin Press for providing this book via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinions.

Black River presented some dark realities of our society with corruption, neglect, power abuse in which innocence,hope and humanity gets lost and crushed to death. An emotionally harrowing sequence of events with tiny bits of respite in between, I was immersed in the story and will call it a good reading experience.

On the surface and in the immediate, Black River is a story about a man whose daughter is murdered and the challenges that come with managing his grief and the ineptitude of the local police. However, the story is so much more about people’s life journeys to become their true selves and to do what’s right.

Filled with big moral and ethical choices, this story takes place in Delhi and examines the wealth gap, the religious tensions on the micro- and microcosmic levels.

I picked it up as it was touted to be a psychological thriller of interest to those who enjoyed Where the Crawdads Sing. The description wasn’t wrong.

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!