I loved the structure of this book. The plot is fairly well known by now: a teenage boy from the slums of Mumbai is arrested for cheating to win the top prize on India's version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" He's an orphan with the name Ram Mohammad Thomas so that he can be a chameleon in whatever company his surroundings warrant—Hindu, Muslim, or Christian. Sprung from jail by a young female attorney, he tells her the pieces of his life that correspond to each question that he answered correctly on the game show. He has experienced some violent moments, including some that he orchestrated himself in order to protect a potential victim. In other adventures he's quite the clever picaresque hero, but he makes enough foolish mistakes to keep things lively. My favorite scene is where he pretends to be a Taj Mahal tourist guide after overhearing the spiel of an official guide. His mangling of the facts is absolutely hilarious, especially when he realizes that he can make quite a good living as an unauthorized guide. The kid may be the poster child for instant karma and gaining knowledge from life experiences, but it doesn't hurt to have a pretty solid memory capacity. Even though it's a foregone conclusion that he's going to answer all the quiz show questions correctly, the ending holds a surprise for the reader, as it offers the protagonist one more opportunity to punish a no-goodnik.
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