‘Karachi Vice’ is an interesting piece of reportage, but less entertaining and compelling than I hoped it might be. Written by Samira Shackle, a British journalist with English and Pakistani parents, it follows the lives of five citizens of the capital of Pakistan, Karachi. The book is constructed from interviews she did did on two trips to the city and certainly gives a flavour of life in such a turbulent metropolis. What it lacks is the energy and strong storytelling that might have made it a more gripping read. It certainly doesn’t live up to the exploitative promise of its title.
There are certainly some interesting characters here, I particularly enjoyed reading about Safdar, an ambulance driver who spends most of his time collecting corpses and Zille, a television journalist whose work frequently puts him in the firing line. In fact all five are well chosen and each adds something different to the picture of Karachi that Shackle paints. Of course, the city itself comes out as a character too: violent and desperate as it is fractured again and again by terrorism, crime and political corruption.
The problem for me was that the writing is never as good as the subject matter. It’s all a bit staid and scholarly. Shackle writes well about politics but less well about crime, and so the book lacked the drama I wanted it to have. I don’t normally nitpick on the intricacies of an author’s writing, but the fact that Shackle re-uses two dollar words didn’t help matters. “Higgledy piggledy” and “febrile” both cropped more than once.
If the subject matter appeals, this is still worth a read though. The subjects are all interesting and Karachi itself is fascinating. What’s more, there’s never been a more important time than now to understand the lives and experiences of fellow humans around the world. ‘Karachi Vice’ certainly gave me a better awareness of everyday life in Pakistan.
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Samira Sackle's Karachi Vice is one of those books one wants to buy in bulk and hand out to friends, relatives, mere acquaintances. To write Karachi Vice, Sackle (whose parents migrated from Pakistan to the UK and who still has a great many family members living in Pakistan) shadowed a group of five individuals.

• Parveen, a female activist who has chosen not to marry so she can focus her life on making change
• Safdar, an ambulance driver for a non-profit organization that provides low-cost ambulance service for all except the very rich
• Zille, a crime reporter and news personality who has connections on every side of the many struggles going on in Pakistan
• Janat, a young woman who still dreams of finishing her education and who lives in a village on the outskirts of Karachi that is being systematically destroyed to make room for high-end housing developments
• Siraj, who works for a nonprofit that maps areas ignored by the powers that be in order to document land possession, the need for electricity and sanitation services, etc.

This isn't a representative cross-section of Karachi's population, and Shackle made that choice deliberately. She wanted to focus on individuals who were representative of the experiences of many of the city's residents, but who, in one way or another, had found ways of pushing back and trying to make change.

Shackle is an adept writer, and her portraits of these individuals read as smoothly and engagingly as the best fiction. One doesn't leave the book with a systematic understanding of all the various forces and issues in Karachi, but one does get a very real sense of what it is like to try to make change in an area where just staying alive is a full-time challenge.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are two very different nations, but their histories have overlapped a great deal. The Taliban originated from within Pakistani security forces and shapes much of life in both nations. In Afghanistan, the Taliban's power is rising; in Pakistan it has receded somewhat. Both nations are facing cultural implosions resulting from conflicts in world views and social norms. Women in both nations have been forced into a three steps forward, two steps back dance as they work toward self-determination—and that dance is too often two steps forward and three steps back. So, with reasonable caveats, I think it's appropriate to read Karachi Vice as a book that can teach us about life in both nations.

If you want to go beyond the sporadic, hyper-focused, echoing sound chamber of calamity that describes much of the news coverage of this region, Karachi Vice is an excellent place to start.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher; the opinions are my own. ( )