Anyone seeking an escapist literary alternative to the current events in Lebanon is unlikely to want to track down Elias Khoury's novel "Yalo." With all its evocations of war, sexual passion and disturbing human behavior, the latest English translation of

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They were the takenoko-zoku or bamboo shoot kids. They were named so because they just sprang up sometime in the '80s. One group went in for the '50s-style look of leather jackets, pompadours, slicked back hair...

So when the police, baffled at the disappearance of his best friend Manoj (Biju Menon) and several assassinations of prominent scientists and entrepreneurs calls him to investigate, it actually makes sense. Not to mention the fact that Manoj is actually

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