With recipes, murder, intrigue, and vernacular from another era, this crime novel recaptures the tastes and turbulence of 1960s Calcutta as the city struggles with the changes pressing upon the country. A young, widowed mother, Mrs. D'Silva is eager to be part of the new India, the new Kolkata, and enjoys her job as a teacher at Don Bosco's Catholic School. Raised herself by the nuns of St. Mary's, she's particularly troubled when the body of Agnes Lai, a ward of the nuns of the Loreto Convent, washes up on the marshes of the Hooghly River. Mrs. D'Silva finds herself speculating on whether Agnes was murdered and if anyone cares when young girls go missing every day. Her horror increases when Anil Sen, a former student of Mrs. D'Silva and a close friend of Agnes, is charged with killing a factory worker during a riot started by the Worker's Revolutionary Movement of Bengal. The investigations are headed nowhere as the movement's ringleader, the saitan Dutta, runs circles around Inspector Basu, who is reluctantly involved in both cases. The situation evolves into shambles until Mrs. D'Silva discovers her detective instincts.
