Londonstani

London's second-generation Asians are given the "Trainspotting" treatment in this slang-driven first novel, about four "desis" ("our own word for homeboy") who fight and preen in the backwater borough of Hounslow. Jas, the teen-age narrator, was a "dickless khota" before being taken under the muscled wing of the self-styled gangsta Hardjit, and his painstaking efforts to emulate his cohorts' "rudeboy finesse" are related in illuminating detail: facial hair should look "drawn on with a felt-tip pen" and riding in a Beemer requires staring "out the window like some big dumb dog with a big slobbery tongue." The incessant blend of boyish patois and text-message speak ("we had 2 call Davinder b4 we left dis place, innit") is captivating, but the plot becomes overwrought and absurd when the boys stumble into the world of high-stakes crime. <link>