Vikas Swarup’s first novel, Q & A, took as its starting point a poor, illiterate waiter who wins a million dollars on a game show and the subsequent investigation by the producers of the game show into how someone like him could have known the answers to their questions. The novel proceeds to look at each of the questions he was asked and how his specific experiences equipped him to answer them.

In Swarup’s latest novel, he uses this same device of looking back from a primary event to uncover the way in which the said event comes to pass. The six suspects of the title are suspected of the shooting and murder of the rich, spoilt playboy Vicky Rai in the middle of an elite party. They are: a corrupt businessman, an American tourist, an indigenous tribesman, a Bollywood starlet, a petty thief and his own father, Jagannath Rai, the Home Minister of the state of Uttar Pradesh. All have motives and all have come to the party armed. A sprawling novel with a whodunnit at its core.