In the country of the damned do the birds sing? Does laughter ring? Do creepers of lush stories decorate crumbling ruins? Does the rain fall? How deep run the caverns of justice and injustice? How dark? Does any fire burn there, of warmth and of illumination? What is the flotsam of humanity that finds itself swept into this murky slipstream? Is there an unacknowledged symphony in sin? Can the sinner be beautiful? Are redemption and mercy the two greatest impulses known to humankind?

In the thick air of a coastal town, inside the iron bars manufactured by the laws of men, life explodes with tropical ferocity. Inferno, purgatorio, paradiso, and limbo – always limbo – come together in a frantic soup of sadness and madness. More truths and revelations are laid bare than can be claimed by any courtroom or church.

In his new novel, Tarun J Tejpal takes the darkest of human material and unearths in it the unstoppable surge of the human spirit. Writing in his inimitable tragicomic style he creates a spellbinding world of extraordinary characters and stories never encountered before.

The Line of Mercy is an epic – and utterly original – addition to the universal literature of crime and punishment.