Necropolis

＂Someone is cutting off victims’ fingers in New Delhi and vampires and lycans are suspects in this ambitious mix of detection and the supernatural from Singh.＂ --Publishers Weekly

Necropolis follows Sajan Dayal, a detective in pursuit of a serial (though nonlethal) collector of fingers. He encounters would-be vampires and werewolves, and a woman named Razia who may or may not be centuries old. Guided by Singh’s gorgeous and masterful writing, the novel peels back layers of a city in thrall to its past, hostage to its present, and bitterly divided as to its future. Delhi went from being an imperial capital to provincial backwater in a few centuries: the journey back to exploding commercial metropolis has been compressed into a few decades. Combining elements of crime, fantasy, and noir, Necropolis tackles the questions of origin, ownership, and class that such a revolution inevitably raises. The world of Delhi, the sweep of its history--its grandeur, grimness, and criminality--all of it comes alive in Necropolis.

Avtar Singh is the author of The Beauty of These Present Things. He has worked as a magazine editor in Mumbai and Delhi. He lives in Delhi with his wife, son, and singing dog.