Hot Stage

Nair captures the seedy side of shiny new India vividly Guardian

When elderly Professor Mudgood, a well-known rationalist and fervent critic of right-wing forces in India, is found dead in his home in Bangalore by his daughter, Assistant Commissioner of Police Borei Gowda is quite certain that this is a homicide. Although all evidence points to the murder being politically motivated, the more Gowda delves into the case, the more convinced he is that it isn't an assassination.

As he and his team launch a parallel investigation, they stumble upon a secret and murky world where there are no rules or mercy. When Gowda's hand is forced, he takes a calculated risk and infiltrates the sinister domain to bring the truth out into the open... Will he succeed? And at what price?

Vivid with detail and taut with suspense, Hot Stage is at once a cracking police procedural and an intense exploration of the squalor and vice that fester in the shadowy lanes of an urban sprawl.

Anita Nair's writing in some moments has photographic qualities, in others the precision of a surgeon's scalpel; and always the great inner warmth of the human heart. Truly astounding writing. Peter James, bestselling author and creator of the Detective Superintendent Roy Grace TV series