Features The Big Thrill Recommends: THE BLUE MONSOON by Damyanti Biswas

The Big Thrill Recommends: THE BLUE MONSOON by Damyanti Biswas

Recommended by K.L. Romo

In her latest police procedural, THE BLUE MONSOON (book two in the Blue Mumbai thriller series), Damyanti Biswas takes readers into the heart of Mumbai, India, and its complicated three-thousand-year-old caste system.

Senior Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput is called to a grisly murder scene at a Hindu temple. The killer not only sliced off pieces of the victim’s face—making it unrecognizable—he’d also cut off and taken his genitals. The murderer left red hibiscus petals scattered around the man and drew tantric cult symbols with sindoor—a vermillion powder used by Hindu brides—over the victim’s torso.

Tara Rajput, Arnav’s wife, is wheelchair bound and pregnant. She’s determined to take her life back after a bullet left her paralyzed. But volunteering at a local non-profit program for girls, she becomes entwined in a vengeful and deadly plot for justice. Biswas gives readers a first-hand glimpse of living with physical challenges in an able-bodied world.

Not only is THE BLUE MONSOON a riveting police procedural, Biswas dives deeply into Indian culture—both ancient and modern—and its complex social hierarchy. She also shines a spotlight on the struggles of the Kinnar, or Hijra community—those born male but who identify as female—and the Dalit, or untouchables, ostracized as per the caste system. The story is a compelling social commentary on the repression of those labeled “less than” by higher castes in India.

The Big Thrill Recommends: THE BLUE MONSOON by Damyanti Biswas