OK it's long - but the author has a pretty good knack for story-telling and the tale does tug the reader along.
What I liked best - and perhaps this is because our recent visit to India is fresh - he gives what seems to me to be a pretty faithful description of how India (Mumbai in this case) would appear to a Western visitor. (He's from Australia or New Zealand and supposedly spent 10 years in Mumbai on the lam following a prison escape while serving time for armed robbery.)
Mentions so many little things that resonate with what we saw: mango lassi; "challo!"; stainless steel cup and plate; driver with jasmine garland in his car; the head wiggle (if that's the right term); serve meal on banana leaf; he visits a village that seldom had non-Indian visitors; Mumbai street scenes; many more.
He also spends a bunch of time describing Mumbai slums - which I've never seen anything like - this felt a little idealized, the slum seemed to have better governance than most municipalities.
Two things I didn't love: #1 - not that he did them badly, but he tried to do too many things - offering philosophical observations, taking the plot in all sorts of directions, so many characters. Perhaps many readers like this, but I would have preferred tighter.
#2: author comes across as narcissistic - pretty much everyone he encounters just loves him, several literally want to adopt him; plus he is consistently awesome at dealing with pretty much any situation (and there are a lot of situations over this many pages).
But I kept turning pages and was entertained throughout.
I think the author genuinely loved his time in India, which is kind of neat.
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