Book detail

On an old estate along a quiet river in South India, a family waits for the arrival of a granddaughter they haven't seen in some time. When she fails to appear, no one wants to believe she has once again changed her plans without telling anyone. But when she fails to call, the family begins to worry.

Anita Ray accompanies her auntie Meena to the family estate to comfort the grandmother and try to figure out where her cousin has got to. During the visit, a maidservant falls into a trance and reports that Devi, the Great Goddess, is angry, very angry with the family. Even worse, the maidservant predicts that Surya, the granddaughter, will never arrive.

The family astrologer advises an exorcism to cure the maidservant, and with this begins Anita's unrelenting curiosity about the astrologer, his associates, and a number of family antiques that have gone missing.

This book takes the reader into a little-known world of Kerala, South India, an old world of sacred groves and the gods who guard them, of devotees who face divine possession and the exorcists who would cure them, of the treasures that lie scattered across the Indian landscape and those who would claim them.