The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Adiga, Aravind. Amnesty. New York: Scribner, 2020.

In present-day Sydney, Dhananjaya “Danny” Rajaratnam is living as an illegal immigrant. He is originally from Sri Lanka, but he fled to Australia because he is Tamil, which is a persecuted ethnic group in Sri Lanka. Danny has been living in Sri Lanka for four years, and he makes his living by cleaning people’s homes for pay. For the past two years, he has been dating a woman named Sonja, but he has not told her about his illegal immigration status. One day, Danny is cleaning a home, and he notices some police activity across the street. He soon learns that the woman who lived there, Radha Thomas, has been murdered. Danny used to be friends with Radha, and he knows that the killer is probably Prakash Wadhwa, the man with whom Radha was having an affair. Radha’s husband is a real estate agent named Mark.

Danny is the only one besides Prakash who knows about Radha and Prakash’s connection. However, Prakash soon contacts Danny. Prakash says that he knows about Danny’s illegal immigration status, and that if Danny reports him to the police, then Prakash will report Danny, and Danny will likely be deported. The novel gives some background information on Radha and Prakash. Radha was an Australian citizen, and Prakash is a legal immigrant. Prakash is insecure about the fact that racial prejudice and his lack of citizenship bar him from many professional opportunities. Prakash and Radha’s rapport was sometimes tense and volatile. Danny confessed his illegal status to Radha, as she worked for the government and said that she might be able to help him with his legal predicament.

Danny wanders the streets of Sydney and wonders what he should do. Prakash repeatedly calls him on the phone and warns him not to go to the police. Danny reflects upon his life in Sydney, and his previous life in Sri Lanka. The first time Danny left Sri Lanka, it was to work in Dubai for a year. When Danny returned to Sri Lanka, he was interrogated by government agents, who accused him of working for a Tamil rebel group. The government agents even used some forms of physical torture. Fearing for his life, Danny fled to Australia on a student visa. Once he was there, he tried to apply for refugee status, but the government denied his application. Danny therefore became an illegal immigrant. Since then, he has lived in a room above a shop and has paid half of his work wages to the shop owner.

Prakash calls Danny on the phone a few more times. Prakash claims that he is going to board a plane to South Africa in a few hours. However, when Danny sees that there are no flights to South Africa that day, Danny soon educes that Prakash plans to murder Radha’s husband, Mark. Danny then decides to call the police and report Prakash. The police arrest Prakash before he can harm Mark. The police also arrest Danny and schedule him to be deported.