BLOOD SPORTS

Keshava Guha's The Tiger's Share is a tragicomic take on sibling rivalry and other family dynamics

- Manjula Padmanabhan

THIS CLEVER, FAST-PACED NOVEL FOCUSES ON A PASSION hotter than sex: the territorial frenzy of a brother challenging his sister's claim to family property. Tara Saxena, the narrator, is a successful lawyer with a cool wit and a knack for snarky-taut summations. Her dim-bunny younger brother Rohit is the classic ne'er-do-well. He's soaked up parental funds while pursuing a foreign degree, then remained in the US still chasing dreams. But when their father retires, Rohit rushes back to India, convinced that his conniving sister will surely snatch the tiger's share of the inheritance all to herself.