India, Aug. 18 -- Right from the word go, Gunboy fires off from all cylinders. It's a bullet-laced bildungsroman tangled in a gun-slinging revenge drama. It's a tale that knows exactly what it wants to be. It's fast, familiar, and never pretends otherwise.

Set in Maharashtra's Rannwara, we meet Arvind and Sudipto, two schoolboys - one scraping by, one rich - both bruised by the same schoolyard tyrant, Jaggi. Their days are stitched together with fear, until the infamous hitman Amar Singh drifts into town with a stash of guns and the swagger of a Hindi crime classic. And that's when they meet Gun. Not a gun. The Gun - gleaming white, gold-dipped, and blessed by Lord Hanuman himself.

Until this point, the novel gives you a tender, observa...