Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line

The story is narrated by 9-year-old Jai, who lives with his family in a Delhi shantytown near the end of Delhi's purple line. Jai loves the police reality shows his family watches on tv, so when one of his classmates disappears, he and his two school friends decide to investigate the case the same way they've seen it done on tv. Jai thinks he's smarter than his friends, and it's fun and funny to watch their interactions. I found out only after I’d read the book that Anappura drew on a rash of real-life disappearances in metropolitan India when constructing her plot. Djinn Patrol reminded me of Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce novels, thanks to its young narrator, and I had a much easier time getting in the story once I reminded myself that, like in the Flavia stories, a small child is telling me this story.