Having read the above reviews, and knowing that Desai won the Costa first novel award, I was looking forward to reading this book. The story is compelling and I think it's an important story that needs to be told, however the language and structure of the book are poor. Desai uses similar tricks to Dan Brown in the Da Vinci code; maddening and obvious half finished chapters/ emails and telephone calls, with no apparent reason other than to entice the reader to read the next chapter. Simran, although a sympathetic and likable protagonist, also has a tendency to 'lecture' the reader with background information - whether it's about the mystery or the situation of women in India. Most of this could/should have been conveyed in a subtler way (hence why so many detectives have a sidekick). So it's a good quick read, and if you like Dan Brown you may well like this book, but from a literature point of view, this book doesn't offer much.
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