In this unusual murder mystery, the tranquility of Saint Mary's Abbey is shattered by the discovery of a gruesome crime in a cottage on the abbey grounds. A foreign artist and war hero seeking refuge from the world has been murdered. Marie Paige, the frail, sickly wife of the village doctor, lies beside him beaten into a coma. The police arrest Marie's husband, convinced that they are looking at a crime of passion. But Dr. Paige finds himself with an unlikely champion: Fr. Gabriel, a blundering but brilliant Benedictine priest who believes in his innocence and feels compelled to search for the truth. In a country struggling to come to terms with the devastation of the Second World War, even a secluded English village has its share of secrets and broken lives. It is not long before Fr. Gabriel and his companions find themselves embarking on a dangerous journey into the victims' troubled war histories and a chapter of Europe's bloodiest conflict that is almost too terrible to be acknowledged.

In this unusual murder mystery, the tranquility of Saint Mary's Abbey is shattered by the discovery of a gruesome crime in a cottage on the abbey grounds. A foreign artist and war hero seeking refuge from the world has been murdered. Marie Paige, the frail, sickly wife of the village doctor, lies beside him beaten into a coma. The police arrest Marie's husband, convinced that they are looking at a crime of passion. But Dr. Paige finds himself with an unlikely champion: Fr. Gabriel, a blundering but brilliant Benedictine priest who believes in his innocence and feels compelled to search for the truth. In a country struggling to come to terms with the devastation of the Second World War, even a secluded English village has its share of secrets and broken lives. It is not long before Fr. Gabriel and his companions find themselves embarking on a dangerous journey into the victims' troubled war histories and a chapter of Europe's bloodiest conflict that is almost too terrible to be acknowledged.

In a small town in the heart of India, a young girl, barely alive, is found in a sprawling house where thirteen people lie dead. The girl has been beaten and abused, and the house still smoulders from the fire that raked through it. The girl now awaits her trial for the murders that the local police believe she has committed. But an unconventional social worker, Simran Singh, is convinced of her innocence. As Simran begins to examine the circumstances around the case, she encounters a terrifying web of prejudice and deceit in which lives of women are endangered from birth. Brilliantly descriptive of tradition-bound Punjab, Kishwar Desai's debut novel introduces the feisty and independent Simran, whose determination to seek out the truth places her at odds with her environment. What she discovers will change her forever.