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Witness the Night

Kishwar Desai

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Oct 21, 2020 Tony rated it really liked it

Shelves: novels, crime, setting-india

I put this on my "to read" list years ago for reasons I can't recall, but stumbled across it the other day and finally picked it up. The story takes place in the small Punjab city of Jullundur, roughly 100 miles east of Lahore. The book (and each chapter) opens with an italicized section that we come to understand is a diary of sorts, written by a 14-year-old girl being held in suspicion of murdering her thirteen family and household members.

Each chapter then transitions to the main section, wh I put this on my "to read" list years ago for reasons I can't recall, but stumbled across it the other day and finally picked it up. The story takes place in the small Punjab city of Jullundur, roughly 100 miles east of Lahore. The book (and each chapter) opens with an italicized section that we come to understand is a diary of sorts, written by a 14-year-old girl being held in suspicion of murdering her thirteen family and household members.

Each chapter then transitions to the main section, which is told by 45-year-old single social worker Simran Singh. She's been invited by an old college flame, who is now the regional Inspector General, to try and get the girl to talk about what happened. Singh grew up in the city, and coming back sparks various reflections on her own school years and childhood. While the horrific murder is the catalyst for the story, it's not strictly a genre story. The book is more interested in showing how even in a modern Indian city, women are subjugated, voiceless, and powerless. Female infanticide and child trafficking lies at the heart of the story, and it's pretty grim stuff pulled from real life.

Singh does investigate and talk to various people connected to the case, including maintaining a running email correspondence with the girl's sister-in-law, who had flown to England and thus escaped being killed. She's more or less warned off several times, and continues to dig away at the truth, convinced of the girl's innocence. As a single person who drinks, smokes, and sticks her nose into things, she's both a genre archetype and, in this setting, a complete outsider.

By the end, the culprits are more or less revealed, even if the various motivations for a coverup aren't fully spelled out. Readers seeking a sense of complete tidiness at the conclusion of their crime stories may not be fully satisfied. There are two more books featuring Singh, and I'd definitely be interested in reading them, although if they're as dark as this one, I'll need to take a break first. ...more

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Jun 15, 2011 Joerg rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-asia

Jul 02, 2012 Daisy marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: india

Jul 02, 2018 Martha rated it liked it · review of another edition

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