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Vendor
Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik
Original language
English

MISS LAILA ARMED AND DANGEROUS

Manu Joseph

Bold, stylish and deceptively witty, Manu Joseph's gripping new novel poses searching questions about political forces and religious division—with an ingenious twist.
On the day that Hindu nationalists and their controversial leader have won a spectacular election victory, a large apartment building collapses in Mumbai. The rescue operation finds a single survivor trapped under a beam.

The only person able to reach him is Akhila Iyer, a medical student who is also a notorious prankster. Crawling through the rubble to administer first aid, she finds him mumbling in delirium that a young Muslim couple are on their way to carry out a terror attack.

Elsewhere, an intelligence agent, Mukundan, is assigned to shadow two terror suspects, one of whom is the teenager Laila, sweetheart of her street. Time is running out and the chase is on

MISS LAILA, ARMED AND DANGEROUS is a gripping chase novel that poses searching questions about the workings of power and its effects on the ordinary people — the watchers and the followers, and those who are trapped when buildings fall. Mariella Frostrup speaks of the novel's ‘searing prose' and Ben East in the Observer called it ‘caustic, comic and determinedly controversial', talking of the ‘thriller lurking beneath it'. HarperCollins India published in India in 2017 and Podium came out with the Dutch edition this month. Manu Joseph will be in the UK for publicity later this year, and will also take up a writer's residency in Amsterdam over the summer.

His debut novel SERIOUS MEN (2010) won The Hindu Literary Prize and the PEN/Open Book Award, and was shortlisted for The Man Asian Literary Prize, the regional Commonwealth Prize and the PG Wodehouse Prize for the Best Comic Novel. His second novel THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE (2012) was shortlisted for the Hindu Prize and longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and IMPAC Dublin Prize for Literature.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Manu Joseph is a columnist with The International Herald Tribune, the global edition of The New York Times. His debut novel SERIOUS MEN was published in many countries and won the PEN/Open Book award and The Hindu Best Fiction Award. It was also shortlisted for The Man Asian Literary Prize, the regional Commonwealth Prize and the PG Wodehouse Prize for the Best Comic Novel.
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Published 2017-09-15 by HarperCollins

Comments

‘Laila is a wonderful creation. She spirited, clever, funny, industrious This is Manu Joseph's most all-encompassing novel yet, a startlingly angry portrait of contemporary India [It is] a romping satirical thriller that recognises no sacred cows but scorches a path through the corridors of political power.' Mariella Frostrup on BBC Radio 4's Open Book

‘It has the breathless pace of a Hollywood car chase, a dry, clever humour worthy of Aaron Sorkin, and the heavy heart and soul of Márquez. A thrilling novelistic entry point to the hierarchies, power-plays, comedies and tragedies of contemporary India.'

Myraid

Podium