Book: The Sea of Innocence
Author: Kishwar Desai
No of pages: 358
Plot Summary:
A
missing girl, a death in paradise, and a race against time to uncover the
truth. The thrilling new adventure starring Simran Singh.
Goa, India. A beautiful holiday hideaway where hippies and
backpackers while away the hours. But beneath the clear blue skies lies a dirty
secret…
Simran Singh is desperate for a break and some time away
from her busy job as a social worker-cum-crime investigator. And so the
unspoilt idyll of Goa seems just the place - white beaches, blue seas and no
crime.
But when a disturbing video appears on her phone, featuring
a young girl being attacked by a group of men, she realises that a darkness festers
at the heart of this supposed paradise. And when she discovers out that the
girl is Liza Kay, a British teenager who has gone missing, she knows she must
act in order to save her.
But first Simran must break through the web of lies and dark
connections that flourish on these beaches.
Everyone, it seems, knows what has
happened to the girl but no one is prepared to say. And when more videos
appear, and Simran herself is targeted in order to keep her quiet, the paradise
soon becomes a living nightmare.
General Thoughts: We picked up The Sea of Innocence because I
had read and enjoyed Kishwar Desai’s Witness the Night a few years back.
Witness the Night, with its themes of patriarchy, abuse, corruption and such,
made for a gripping and intense read. So, when we saw a new book by Desai, we
were tempted to pick it up.
As the plot summary says, the book is based in Goa or
rather, as the author struggles to differentiate (rather pointlessly, in my
opinion) ‘the beaches of Goa’ (filled with sex, drugs, foreigners and all that
bad stuff) and ‘the real Goa’ (which, according to Desai, is full of temples,
churches, mosques and all the good things in life). So, set against this lurid
backdrop of sex, drugs and (almost- well, Bob Dylan’s music is referenced in a
few places) rock n’ roll, our story unfolds.
Journo-cum- crime-investigator, Simran Singh and her
daughter, are vacationing in Goa, when Simran’s ex-boyfriend, a cop in Delhi,
sends her a video of a young British girl being filmed whilst being gang-raped
by four “beach boys” (who according to Desai are the Indian, scratch that, Goan
boys, who work in the various shacks and restaurants on the beach). Disgusted and
intrigued, Simran sets off on a crazy journey to unearth who this girl is and
what has become of her.
What I Liked: The first half of the book is very gripping. The
story unfolds fast and we are handed a series of clues in rapid succession. We learn
that the young girl is called Liza Kay and she lived in one of the many
beach-proximity Guest Houses in Anjuna. We also learn, via more videos from an
anonymous sender, about other things that have happened to young Liza. Simran is
quick to jump on clues and make connections and so, the first half of the book
is nice and pacy.
I also enjoyed the cast of characters who formed a part of “the
beach” version of Goa- from the “beach boys” to seemingly harmless multi-lingual
women peddling henna-tattoos-and-silver-jewellery to bigger fish with bigger
agendas. It is clear that Desai has done a decent amount of research, or, at
any rate, been to Goa several times whilst writing this book.
What I Didn’t Like: I did not like how this book has taken
advantage of the brutal, tragic, horrifying and heart-breakingly devastating gang rape of a young woman
in a bus in Delhi. Known to most Indians as the ‘Nirbhaya Case’, in terms of timeline, the events in this book happen parallelly to Nirbhaya’s rape and her struggle to live right after it. The
book does not go into great details about Nirbhaya’s case, but the whole
incident seems to play an ominous sort of context to the plot. Also, the book
seems to be a little too “inspired” by the tragic Scarlett Keeling rape and
murder from 2008. Scarlett is referenced multiple times- in fact, the author
dedicates the book to Jyoti (Nirbhaya) and Scarlett and other girls like them.
To clarify, I have nothing against anyone dedicating a book
to two young women whose lives were tragically cut short by gruesome sexual
acts. What bothered me was how these two incidents were referenced time and
again in an attempt to bolster the thinner-than-distilled-water plot line.
Speaking of which, after a very promising start, the book
veers off course and tries to valiantly inject more complications into the
storyline. These include hippies, drugs, gambling, politics and such like. These
bits seem so haphazard and very poorly written. It was obvious that the author was
out of her depth while writing these bits and there is ain’t nothing sadder
than that.
Would you like it?: I would recommend Witness the Night if
you want to read a good book by Kishwar Desai and reading the Wikileaks reports
on what most likely happened to Scarlett if you want to know the nexus of sex
and drugs and mafia in Goa.
Rating: 2/5
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