The Raja is Dead

Whispers of murder stalk the corridors of Sirikot palace only to disappear forever into the dark womb of family secrets. As India stands poised on the brink of Independence-and Indian monarchy on the brink of ruin-the first family of Sirikot deals with the latest rumours of murder with characteristic panache, heedlessly continuing its centuries-old tradition of extravagance, debauchery and imperial whim. Leela, the feisty thirteen-year-old granddaughter of the Raja of Sirikot, determines to investigate, only to find that every lead reveals a closely-guarded untruth and that everyone in her family is implicated. Shivani Singh’s The Raja is Dead is an intriguing, deftly plotted tale of murder define by the complex laws of concubinage, kingship, primogeniture and heredity as also an intimate and witty portrait of India’s derelict nobility and those condemned by birth and caste to serve it.