*All reviews are from online reviews*

It tells the story of Darashikoh Shezad, a banker from Lahore, Pakistan, who loses his job, falls in love with his best friend's wife, and plunges into a life of drugs and crime.

Interesting balance of inner & outer lives, a life of self inflicted misadventures in Pakistan ( )

In Lahore.
On air conditioning:
"The pioneer of academic commentary in this field is professor Julius Superb. Although his ideas received a cool reception when first aired, they are now widely influential and are discussed not only in doctoral dissertations but also in board rooms and living rooms throughout the land. Indeed, Lahore will not soon forget the Superb paper presented at the provincial seminar on social class in pakistan. . .
'There are two social classes in pakistan,' professor Superb said to his unsuspecting audience, gripping the podium with both hands as he spoke. 'The first group, large and sweaty, contains those referred to as the masses. The second group is much smaller, but its members exercise vastly greater control over their immediate environment and are collectively termed the elite. This distinction between members of these two groups is made on the basis of control of an important resource: air conditioning. You see, the elite have managed to recreate for themselves the living standards of say, sweden, without leaving the dusty plains of the subcontinent. they're a mixed lot - punjabis and pathans, Sindhis and baluchis, smugglers, mullahs, soldiers, industrialists -- United by their residence in an artificially cooled world. They wake up in air conditioned houses, drive air conditioned cars to air conditioned offices, grab lunch in air conditioned restaurants (rights of admission reserved ), and at the end of the day go home to their air conditioned lounges to relax in front of their widescreen tvs. And if they should think about the rest of the people, the great uncooled, and become uneasy as they lie under their blankets in the middle of the summer, there is always prayer, five times a day, which they hope will gain them admittance to an air conditioned heaven, or, at the very least, a long cool drink during a fiery day in hell.' "

Murad Badshaw, the rickshaw entrepreneur, and Duro's partner in crime. It was he who first gave Duro "hitch" (heroin) to sell, along with his regular load of hash:
"ACs, on the other hand, he considered unnatural and dangerous. Your pores will get out of shape if you rely on ACs for your cooling, he would say. It's fine as long as you stay in your little air conditioned space, but one day you might need to rely on your body again and your body won't be there for you. After all, fortunes change, power blackouts happen, compressors die, coolant leaks.
He loved load shedding [when too many people are sucking up energy, the power company blacks out] for this reason. It amused him to see the rich people on the grounds of their Mansions as he drove past their iron gates, Fanning themselves in the darkness, muttering as they called the power company on their cellular phones. Indeed, nothing made me murad badshah more happy than the distress of the rich."
Me too.

This is about a poor kid whose father was in the army with his Rich buddy. The rich guy had a kid, so when the poor kid's father died in a concentration camp his Rich buddy looked after the poor kid. He gave him a ride to the private school where his kid went, and eventually the two kids became friends.
The rich kid went away to study at Harvard and his Rich Dad made sure that the poor kid could study in a good school in pakistan. The rich kid got married to a beautiful woman in New York, and when he come back, the rich kid and the poor kid reconnected.
In The book, poor kid has just got fired from a job in a bank that the rich dad had got him, with his connections. Here started his downward spiral, aided with a love affair with the rich kid's wife.
A story within a story, about how money corrupts. ( )

There were times when I would be so engrossed in the emotions in this book that I would forget I was sitting at work amidst noise and phone calls... ( )

Told from different points of view. Daru's and the witnesses at his trial. Drug use, adultery, corruption, murder, abuse.
Well written, interesting in parts, I just didn't like any of the people. ( )