"Binge-worthy reading at its best: an addictive, action-packed page-turner of epic proportions about the machinations of one dizzyingly wealthy family in contemporary India and the outsiders who are drawn into their treacherous web"-- - (Baker & Taylor)

After a speeding car kills five people late at night in New Delhi, the driver, a shell-shocked servant is unable to explain the series of strange events that lead to the crime. 200,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK

“Dazzling...Finally free from the book’s grip, now all I want to do is get others hooked.”— The Washington Post

“Cinematic…A luxe thriller…As a storyteller, Kapoor is a natural.”-- The New York Times

"Sensationally good — huge, epic, immersive and absorbing ... certain to be a book of the year." —Lee Child

This is the age of vice, where money, pleasure, and power are everything,
and the family ties that bind can also kill.
 
New Delhi, 3 a.m. A speeding Mercedes jumps the curb and in the blink of an eye, five people are dead. It’s a rich man’s car, but when the dust settles there is no rich man at all, just a shell-shocked servant who cannot explain the strange series of events that led to this crime. Nor can he foresee the dark drama that is about to unfold.

Deftly shifting through time and perspective in contemporary India, Age of Vice is an epic, action-packed story propelled by the seductive wealth, startling corruption, and bloodthirsty violence of the Wadia family -- loved by some, loathed by others, feared by all.

In the shadow of lavish estates, extravagant parties, predatory business deals and calculated political influence, three lives become dangerously intertwined: Ajay is the watchful servant, born into poverty, who rises through the family’s ranks. Sunny is the playboy heir who dreams of outshining his father, whatever the cost. And Neda is the curious journalist caught between morality and desire. Against a sweeping plot fueled by loss, pleasure, greed, yearning, violence and revenge, will these characters’ connections become a path to escape, or a trigger of further destruction? 

Equal parts crime thriller and family saga, transporting readers from the dusty villages of Uttar Pradesh to the urban energy of New Delhi, Age of Vice is an intoxicating novel of gangsters and lovers, false friendships, forbidden romance, and the consequences of corruption. It is binge-worthy entertainment at its literary best. - (Penguin Putnam)

Deepti Kapoor grew up in northern India and worked for several years as a journalist in New Delhi. The author of the novel Bad Character, she now lives in Portugal with her husband. - (Penguin Putnam)

Publishers Weekly Reviews

In Kapoor's searing portrait of India at the turn of the 21st century (after Bad Character), finely wrought characters go to great lengths to escape the bonds into which they were born. Ajay, from a desperately poor family and sold into servitude by his mother at eight in 1991, begins working for Sunny Wadia, an unhappy playboy and scion of a powerful family, in 2001. Sunny's father, Bunty, and mysterious uncle Vicky hold sway over whole swaths of the Indian economy and political landscape. Neda Kapur is a cynical journalist first drawn to Sunny by a corruption story she is writing, but is soon caught in the vortex of Sunny's lavish lifestyle of endless parties, drugs, and conspicuous consumption facilitated by the ever-present Ajay. Sunny dreams of creating new cities and carving a new path for himself, but he is emasculated by his father's hold on the family's empire. As Sunny and his friends' behavior becomes increasingly reckless, Ajay is made a scapegoat for a shocking fatal car accident, and Neda witnesses in full the ethical morass upon which the Wadias' success is built. Kapoor's violent and bitter story is deeply addictive; this spellbinder would be easy to devour in one big gulp, but it's worth savoring for Neda's uncompromising take on what she terms India's "losing age, the age of vice." The author possesses a talent great enough to match the massive scope of her subject. (Jan.)