63 pages 2 hours read

Deepti Kapoor

Age of Vice

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

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Part 1, Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “New Delhi, 2004”

At three o’clock in the morning on a cold day in February, an out-of-control Mercedes car crushes five sleeping pavement-dwellers to death and smashes against the curb. The dead include Ragini and Rajesh, a young landless laborer couple who arrived in Delhi the previous day to get a job. Police find a young, handsome drunk man still behind the wheel of the wrecked Mercedes. The man goes by the single name, Ajay. Ajay, who becomes known as “the Mercedes killer” (8), is arrested on a non-bailable warrant on the charge of murder due to negligence.

However, the Mercedes in which Ajay was found drunk at the spot of the crime does not belong to him. It is traced to Gautam Rathore, the polo-player son of a rich and influential family of royals-turned-politicians. The Rathores put out a statement that Ajay took the car out for a spin without their knowledge. In prison, Ajay’s fellow inmates quickly figure out that he is innocent and has taken the fall for Gautam. Ajay prefers to keep to himself, despite offers of recruitment from criminal gangs operating in prison.

One day, three men of the Gupta gang jump Ajay.