A staggering debut novel of murder, loyalty, love, and survival at all costs, set in the teeming underbelly of Calcutta’s most infamous neighborhood. In Calcutta’s notorious red-light district, Lalee aspires to a better life.. Her unfailing loyal client Tilu Shau has dreams, too. A heady romantic and marginal novelist, Tilu is in love with the indifferent Lalee and wants to liberate her from her street life with marriage. But when a fellow sex worker and young mother is brutally murdered, Lalee is invited by the solicitous madam of The Blue Lotus to take her place “upstairs†as a highend escort. The offer comes with the promise of a more lucrative life, but quickly spirals into violence, corruption, and unfathomable secrets that threaten to upset the fragile stability of Lalee’s very existence. As Tilu is drawn deeper into his mission of rescue, he and Lalee embark on life-altering journeys to escape a savage fate. As page-turning as it is poignant, Small Deaths is a brilliantly drawn modern noir that exposes the reality of society’s preyed-upon outcasts, their fierce resilience, and the dangerous impediments to dignity, love, and survival
