My friend Amit Varma just finished up his debut novel, My Friend, Sancho, which was longlisted for the Man Asian prize. It’s the tale of a Bombay crime reporter written in Amit’s typically clean style. Here’s an excerpt :

We reached the station. Thombre was waiting for me outside… His eyes were red. His hair was moist and neatly combed… “Ganguly, Hegde, hello. I was waiting for you. Exciting story, gangster hideout, police investigation, bold arrest.” Thombre often spoke in bullet points, and always in English, even though it was his third language. He would probably have been offended if we tried to chat with him in Marathi or Hindi, so we indulged him. His English skills were functional, and functional is all that matters in Bombay…

I hoped there wouldn’t be a gunfight. I hoped Thombre would quietly call us in after ten minutes, let Santosh take pictures of three handcuffed dudes and a table on which packets of cocaine had been spread out for display. Or even homeopathic powder. That would be just fine…

Then we heard them: loud thuds in the distance, like big doors slamming shut, four or five of them… Thombre turned and walked towards me… one of the cops with him said something like: “Thank God he was Muslim.” I didn’t hear it clearly then, but I remember it clearly now…

“You should leave now. In fact, you were never here.”

His publisher is running a cover design contest. I think you’ll agree we can terminate the contest with the entry above.

Congratulations, Amit, and best of luck!

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