Shivani Singh is a lushly over-written family intrigue, set in the corridors of Sirikit palace just before Independence, its air heavy with adjectives and pedigree (the writer is a descendant of the royal family of Madhupur, we are informed). There is decadence, debauchery and imperial whim, concubinage, kinship and primogeniture.

The Raja of Sirikit is dead, and his thirteen-year-old granddaughter is determined to investigate. Prose sample: The Toyota Qualys waddles like a fat-bottomed woman over the bumpy turnoff to the entrance gate... As the motorcar reaches the gate it leaves a chocolate wake of muddy sludge. Discarded polythene bags of many dirty colors lace the road; the virulent filth of the Indian countryside.