Black River

It takes a village to kill a child... Teetarpur is just a nondescript village outside Delhi - famous for nothing. Until an eight-year-old girl is found swinging from the branch of a Jamun tree, a scarf noosed about her neck.

Her father discovers the body, and at the scene of the crime he also finds Mansoor - an itinerant Muslim in the largely Hindu village - upon whom suspicion immediately falls. Sub-Inspector Ombir Singh has only one officer to command, and they have only one working revolver between them, but it's up to him to find the real killer, and to try to stop the angry villagers from taking violent revenge on Mansoor. With Ombir's limited resources it's an almost impossible job - on top of which he's worn out, by his long career, by the heat and by his wife who he's sure is having an affair.

Can he even be bothered to try? This shockingly powerful literary thriller is set in a brilliantly realised modern India simmering with tension and riven by growing religious intolerance.