A brilliant symphony... Exceptional... One of Rushdie's best novels yet
Independent
Extraordinary... Worth engaging with at every level; a thrilling story told in thrilling language
The Times
<i>Shalimar the Clown</i> is Rushdie's <b>most engaging book since Midnight's Children.</b> It is a lament. It is a revenge story. it is a love story. And it is a warning
Observer
Deeply disturbing and immensely moving... An exquisite, broken thing of pain and beauty
Independent
Excellent... A characteristically daring walk along the tightrope of fiction
Sunday Telegraph
This is an important book... Wonderful
The Times
I'd say it's his best novel yet
Daily Telegraph
There are some breathtakingly eloquent passages<i> </i>
Spectator
Passionate, well-informed<i></i>
London Review of Books
The story is exciting and memorably analyses the way in which fanaticism can wreck the most inoffensive lives
Mail on Sunday
'Rushdie's most engaging book since Midnight's Children' Observer
Shalimar the Clown was once a figure full of love and laughter. His skill as a tightrope walker was legendary in his native home of Kashmir. But fate has played him cruelly, torn him away from his beloved home and brought him to Los Angeles, where he works as a chauffeur. One morning he gets up, goes to work, and kills his employer, America's former counter-terrorist chief Maximilian Ophuls, in view of the victim's illegitimate daughter, India.
The killing has its roots halfway across the globe, back in Kashmir, a ruined paradise not so much lost as shattered. And gradually it emerges that beyond this unholy trinity of Max, India and Shalimar, lurks a fourth, shadowy figure, one who binds them all together.
'This is Rushdie at his most flamboyant best' Financial Times
The killing has its roots halfway across the globe, back in Kashmir, a ruined paradise not so much lost as shattered.