Book Review: Black River by Nilanjana Roy

This searing debut mystery novel pulls no punches as it examines life in pre-COVID India. While her main narrative centers on the murder of a young girl in the small village of Teetarpur, author Nilanjana Roy deftly moves the action back and forth in both time and place, from the quiet of the foothills of the Aravalli to the chaos of Delhi past and present. Her propulsive writing paints an evocative picture of the events that brought not only this cast of characters but the entirety of the country to the state it found itself in during the turmoil of 2017.

Munia is a shy, quiet eight-year-old and the light of her widowed father Chand’s life. He has big plans for her education and future, despite having resigned himself to farming his hereditary land. His brother Balle Ram and sister-in-law Sarita live right next door. Having no children of their own, they dote on Munia as if she were their own daughter. When her body is found hanging by a rope from a jamun tree on their property, the lives of all three adults collapse. 

Suspicion immediately falls on Mansoor, an itinerant Muslim beggar whose mind was damaged long before he arrived in the village. Local police officer Ombir Singh has doubts regarding Mansoor’s guilt but worries about protecting him from the rough justice of the predominantly Hindu village. He’s mostly relieved when a Senior Superintendent of Police from Delhi is brought in to reinforce his and his only local colleague Bhim Sain’s efforts, even if he still nurses a healthy suspicion of the newcomer. Some of his concerns are allayed when SSP Ashwini Pilania insists:

[‘Munia] deserves justice, and we will give it to her.’

 

Ombir Singh nods, less impressed than Bhim Sain. He is that type of officer then, the Delhi boy. Probably not one of the hard men, for whom joining the police is a relief because it gives them a chance to freely use commands, fists, lathis. Maybe not one of the corrupt men, using the power of their uniform to make lakhs in gifts and bribes, and not a time-server. That leaves the last and smallest category. The ones who earnestly want to do good, who want to feel like potent gods, who sprinkle goodness from above into the lives of people, as though it were holy ash. He can handle that kind.

As the police investigate and the press descends on the once-quiet village, two of Chand’s closest friends make the trek from the city to offer him comfort and support. Rabia is the widow of Khalid, Chand’s first roommate when he moved to Delhi as a teenager in search of more than Teetarpur could give him. The three set up a house and grew as close as a family before Chand had to move home to take up farming again. 

Badshah Miyan is the Delhi butcher who took a chance on Chand, and soon found in him a valuable employee, then friend. He, too, had been sad to see Chand leave the city, though had been glad to gain Rabia as a friend, too.

As they tend to the devastated Chand in the aftermath of his daughter’s murder, both Badshah and Rabia must keep their identities as Muslims hidden from the rest of the village. While anti-Muslim sentiment is relatively new to Teetarpur, it’s been a problem in other parts of the country, including where Badshah and Rabia currently live and work. It’s gotten so dire that Badshah is thinking of selling his shop and moving abroad and urges Rabia to do the same. She responds to his laments about losing business with:

“Is that enough reason to turn your back on the place where you were born? These are the games politicians play, in time things will go back to normal.”

 

“What is normal, Rabia?” he says. “Thrice last year, my shop was raided by those gangs of young men who ride around the city looking for trouble. My boys have been beaten up, my freezers and equipment stolen, the bribes grow heavier each year. You’ve never met my mother. She is half-and-half, Hindu and Muslim. My parents had to move out of their village last year and come to stay with us because they were boycotted by both sides. If this is normal now, what will normal be for all of us tomorrow?[“]

As Chand, Rabia, and Badshah grapple with loss, change, and even terror, a ruthless killer works to stay two steps ahead of the stretched-thin police. The wheels of justice turn slowly–too slowly, for some. When Chand is given the opportunity to mete out righteous vengeance, will he be able to take the law into his own hands?

Black River is a remarkable work of fiction that examines what happens when little bigotries are allowed a toehold to legitimacy in politics, and how easily late-stage capitalism uses and discards the powerless. Ombir and Chand must both fight against their roles in a society where truth is secondary to power, and doing the right thing could prove fatal to more than just themselves. Ms. Roy’s start as an author might have been in the fantasy genre, but her mastery of entirely real-life plights and emotions is undeniable in this smart, compelling heartbreaker of a murder mystery that’s destined to become a noir classic.