Safe Return Doubtful

Set in Shonagachhi, one of the more notorious red-light areas of Kolkata, this is a noir novel with a difference, though buried within it are many of the same tropes used widely in the genre.
A sex worker is brutally murdered in the room of a brothel, and the fragile existence of the other workers in the house is threatened.

The story’s protagonists are Lalee, who was sold into sex-work as a teenager by an uncaring father, and Tilu, an aspiring erotic novel novelist whose one occasional indulgence is to visit Lalee.

This is a really well done debut novel that avoids the direction one might expect it to go in. Rather than Tilu being dragged into Lalee’s shadowy life, Das concentrates on Lalee’s determination to find out what happened to her friend. Though the lives of sex-workers do conjure up familiar images and situations, Das’s skill is that she looks elsewhere.

And then of course, there is the setting of a seedy area of Kolkata, and that plays a key role in the novel. It does seem that it makes a particularly good partner for the noir genre.

Published 2022 – My GoodReads score 4 / 5