VEERAPPAN: India's Most Wanted Man

Journalist Raghuram conveys the complexities of rural Indian society in his debut, a sprawling tale of the country's notorious bandit king, with a bounty of four million rupees on his head. Born in 1952 in the poverty-stricken region of Karnataka, Veerappan turned to crime as a teenager and rapidly established himself as a ruthless gangster and smuggler of ivory and sandalwood. In a vicious battle of wills with police, the bandit constructed sophisticated lethal ambushes, while the police tortured and summarily executed Veerappan's henchmen and even detained his wife. Veerappan then escalated the war, abandoning poaching for ransom kidnapping. Beginning with forest rangers, Veerappan progressed to more prominent victims, culminating in his 2000 snatch of the revered, aging film actor Rajkumar—in return for whom he made surprisingly political demands, becoming suddenly the "political messiah of the Tamil masses," which resulted in legal and political upheaval. Veerappan's saga strikingly resembles those of other gangsters, from Al Capone to the Chinese Triads, as in Veerappan's largesse toward impoverished locals in exchange for covert support. Raghuram's elaborately detailed account becomes somewhat overwhelming with its large cast of cops, gangsters, family members and luckless bystanders and numerous violent encounters, schemes and wilderness treks. Still, it's never dull, and it conveys an important story of contemporary India with descriptive flavor and attention to such social ambiguities as the hatred of police and admiration of the bandits. (Sept. 17)

Forecast:This has rewarding potboiler qualities for the true-crime fan, and should appeal to readers with an interest in Indian affairs.