Fed up with the relentless beatings dished out by a local bully, an introverted boy takes extreme measures that threaten to tear apart his small town. Shreyas Rajagopal’s *Gunboy* begins on this somewhat templated note.

Our hero, Arvind, and his best friend, Sudipto, are used to being pummelled by Jaggi Ranade, who also happens to be the son of the incumbent mafia boss of the steel town of Rannwara. Luckily for us, what the book does with these familiar ingredients is both surprising at the plot level and refreshing in its treatment.

The book’s trump card is the character of Amar, the anti-hero to Arvind. While the reader roots for Arvind, they are constantly intrigued by Amar. Amar is a hitman with a fascinating personal story and a fetish for guns. An early character study chapter is basically just Amar cleaning his many guns while having a drink. It is his favourite weapon, a Beretta 9 mm with a custom grip finished in white and gold, that ends up in Arvind’s hands and transforms the novel into a tinderbox.

Rajagopal’s biggest strength is his characterisation. Both Arvind and Amar begin as archetypes, but through frequent flashbacks, we learn more about their beginnings, their motivations, and so on. The author also manages to communicate the texture of lived reality in small-town India exceptionally well.

For example, when Amar steps into a shady-looking hotel that’s most likely a hotspot for prostitution, the proprietor asks him not to bring a girl to the room because it’s not that kind of place. But as Rajagopal points out in the next line, his tenor and his eyes make it abundantly clear that it is exactly that kind of place.

In the wake of Anurag Kashyap’s iconic film *Gangs of Wasseypur*, there has been a string of Indian films and streaming shows — *Mirzapur*, *Bhaukaal*, *Garmi*, et al — that have sought to recapture the small-town gangsters formula. But very few have done it with the smarts and raw kinetic energy displayed by *Gunboy*.

If you’re looking for a fast-paced action thriller that doesn’t insult your intelligence, this is it.

*The reviewer is working on his first book of non-fiction.*
https://www.thehindu.com/books/book-review-gunboy-author-shreyas-rajagopal-crime-small-town-india/article70069063.ece