Moth Smoke

This startling debut by Mohsin Hamid is a tightly packed exploration of Lahore's down and outers.

Daru loses his job and mind as he descends into a cloud of hash smoke and loneliness, attending the best of high society's parties, held in walled compounds, while the economy crumbles outside. His freedom and arrogance bounce him from house to house in search of something. He eventually falls in love with his best friend's wife and they begin a torrid affair. He starts mixing heroin with his hash and soon runs out of ways to pay for it, beginning a deadly relationship with a crooked rickshaw driver, propelling him into a life of crime and murder, spiralling out of control. The book is a tense exploration of Lahore's upper and under classes, well realised in spite of a clichéd central plot. It keeps its pacing up and moves with speed.

The novel drips with highs and lows, sex and drugs and emptiness, much like a Brett Easton Ellis novel. People have said this is the most accurate book about Lahore written, contrasting the high living with the poverty with precision and scathing honesty. Hamid went on to write The Reluctant Fundamentalist, another brilliant book about Pakistan.