Rating: 
Summary: So boring I couldn't finish it.
Review: A well-written absorbing book. Leslie Forbes seems to have a real feel for Bombay and the subcultures of Bollywood and the hijras (transvestites/ eunuchs).
Rating: 
Summary: Come on, folks...
Review: Disliking this book is one thing, who cares, but to criticize it as being erroneous and then proffer a John Irving novel as a more accurate look at India is utterly ridiculous. A great friend of mine grew up in Bombay, there are misspellings of certain places (Sonavla is Lonavla), and wrong names (she names the Bhaja and Karla caves something else entirely) and incorrect descriptions (said caves). However, her portraiture of Bombay slums is dead on, in any event much more so than anything by the quasi-intellectual John Irving. There can be no one all-encompassing book on India, no novel can encapsulate an entire country. What is in fact potentially more insulting than British attempts to understand India (a. agreed b. Forbes is Canadian c.they never really did get past Kipling, did they?) is American attempts to digest whole other cultures by reading two or three books.
Rating:
Summary: To hell with India, a great mystery
Review: I am surprised this book found a publisher. It is rambling and does not seem to be heading anywhere. The principal character, Roz, is rude, obnocsious, and quite an unbearable person. I would hate to come across someone like her in real life.
Rating: 
Summary: Confused, meandering, somewhat schizophrenic
Review: I picked up Bombay Ice after reading the John Irving Book "A son of the Circus", also set in India. Clearly Ms. Forbes has a knowledge and love of the country. Unfortunataly, the book tries to do too many things. Mystery, thriller, meditation on the complexity of Indian society, memoir of a young woman's relationship with her parents and sister, critique of the Indian caste system (both formal and informal), mood piece...it's just too much.Which is too bad. The Author has a very good ear for language and despite the density of the content, her prose refrains from being overly weighty. The books dustcover notes make a game effort at positioning the piece as carrying themes of Chaos (that is 'Chaos', the popular scientific and philosophical notion having to do with patterns in nature, not 'chaos', which is just messy), but I have to believe that that description was an afterthought--a kind of publisher's punt. I hope that Ms. Forbes writes more books. If she does so, she would be well-advised to tightly frame her subject before layering on her talented prose. This book definitely illustrates the famous line "kill your babies"; with more discipline it could very well have been a nice, absorbing mystery story, perhaps even with a dose of character study thrown in. As it stands, the reader is left pretty much in the same state as the protagonist throughout the story--battered by a monsoon of ideas, words, characters, and cultural ideas, rather than gripped, as he might have. Adam Caper
Rating:
Summary: Confused, meandering, somewhat schizophrenic
Review: I picked up Bombay Ice after reading the John Irving Book "A son of the Circus", also set in India. Clearly Ms. Forbes has a knowledge and love of the country. Unfortunataly, the book tries to do too many things. Mystery, thriller, meditation on the complexity of Indian society, memoir of a young woman's relationship with her parents and sister, critique of the Indian caste system (both formal and informal), mood piece...it's just too much. Which is too bad. The Author has a very good ear for language and despite the density of the content, her prose refrains from being overly weighty. The books dustcover notes make a game effort at positioning the piece as carrying themes of Chaos (that is 'Chaos', the popular scientific and philosophical notion having to do with patterns in nature, not 'chaos', which is just messy), but I have to believe that that description was an afterthought--a kind of publisher's punt. I hope that Ms. Forbes writes more books. If she does so, she would be well-advised to tightly frame her subject before layering on her talented prose. This book definitely illustrates the famous line "kill your babies"; with more discipline it could very well have been a nice, absorbing mystery story, perhaps even with a dose of character study thrown in. As it stands, the reader is left pretty much in the same state as the protagonist throughout the story--battered by a monsoon of ideas, words, characters, and cultural ideas, rather than gripped, as he might have. Adam Caper
Rating:
Summary: tedious, boring and full of factual errors
Review: In her debut novel, Leslie Forbes' reach exceeds her grasp. Fortunately for the reader, in failing to achieve perfection, she has still surpassed the bulk of the new fiction on the market. "Bombay Ice" is a dizzying, sultry foray into the dark underside of Indian culture. The reader is pushed and pulled through a host of mind-bending circumstances and events as the heroine searches for her sister's murderer. In gritty detail, the reader is exposed to Bombay, and to a lesser degree, the rest of India through the eyes of someone who both loves and loathes the country. The downside with this novel is that Forbes tries to tackle too much in one book. "Bombay Ice" is alternately a look at the sociology of modern India, an examination of mental illness, and of course, ultimately, a murder mystery. All of these elements are executed well, to a point; but there is simply not enough time to flesh them out completely and keep the novel moving along. Ironically, this mish-mash of angles confuses the plot and ends up having the positive effect of masking the conclusion. Forbes is a writer of prodigous talent, and with a little polishing, she will undoubtably win raves in the future. In the meantime, "Bombay Ice" is a very strong effort, and a thoroughly enjoyable novel.
Rating:
Summary: A strong, but flawed, first novel
Review: In her debut novel, Leslie Forbes' reach exceeds her grasp. Fortunately for the reader, in failing to achieve perfection, she has still surpassed the bulk of the new fiction on the market. "Bombay Ice" is a dizzying, sultry foray into the dark underside of Indian culture. The reader is pushed and pulled through a host of mind-bending circumstances and events as the heroine searches for her sister's murderer. In gritty detail, the reader is exposed to Bombay, and to a lesser degree, the rest of India through the eyes of someone who both loves and loathes the country. The downside with this novel is that Forbes tries to tackle too much in one book. "Bombay Ice" is alternately a look at the sociology of modern India, an examination of mental illness, and of course, ultimately, a murder mystery. All of these elements are executed well, to a point; but there is simply not enough time to flesh them out completely and keep the novel moving along. Ironically, this mish-mash of angles confuses the plot and ends up having the positive effect of masking the conclusion. Forbes is a writer of prodigous talent, and with a little polishing, she will undoubtably win raves in the future. In the meantime, "Bombay Ice" is a very strong effort, and a thoroughly enjoyable novel.
Rating: 
Summary: She has the skills. Her next book should be terrific!
Review: Leslie Forbes's talents of narrative and description and her desire to go far beyond the limits of the usual murder mystery make this reader anxious to read her second novel. This novel, however, is her first novel, and here her reach results in a lack of focus and confusion about the main character's motivation. Is the heroine's mission to find out who, if anyone, killed her brother-in-law's first wife, in order to save her sister from the same fate? Is it to solve the mystery of who is killing the hijras and why? Is it to uncover an art forgery and smuggling operation? Is it to reveal the slimy underside of contemporary politics? Is it to find out who she really is? Here it seems to be all the above. With a half Scottish, half Indian heroine who is also an illegitimate child, in addition to eunuchs, transvestites, movie stars and directors, art collectors and forgers, politicians, and killers, the reader has a lot of characters to try to keep in focus. To this melange the author adds deliberate parallels between this action in Bombay monsoon season, Shakespeare's The Tempest, and not one, but two, different Indian film versions of it. Embellished also with detailed research into the history of weather prediction, the lost wax method of casting, gilding techniques, the chemical use of poisons, and land reclamation processes, this book is a real cornucopia which would have benefitted from judicious editing to highlight the author's considerable talents and broad vision.
Rating: 
Summary: The first book I've *finished* in years.
Review: Oh my. Let's see. . .Each time I set down "Bombay Ice", I couldn't stop thinking about it! It was all I could do to keep myself from toting it along where ever I went. Actually, I think I brought it to a restaurant once. It's truly an addicting read. Rosalind is such an amazing heroine; compassionate yet strong, she's unyielding in her pursuit for "truth". Remarkably clever, Bombay Ice manages to portray an Indian atmosphere so real that I actually felt as if I had stepped into the novel. Also, there's enough content in this novel to make it worth reading a second time.
Rating:
Summary: first fifty pages good - then meltdown
Review: The book starts really well, then any semblance of simplicity goes out the window. If you try and describe chaos, you have to keep your descriptions comprehensible o'wise the reader gets bored and thinks you're being arsy. Actually this book gives more of an impression of someone who starts running quickly down a steep hill and then loses control of their leg muscles, it's still fun in part, but increasingly the author's gasps for breath intrude, especially in the increasingly unlikely heroine.
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