ORIGINS OF LOVE, by Kishwar Desai. Simon & Schuster, 2013, 496 pp., £7.99 (paperback)
Kishwar Desai calls her novels social thrillers; books set in the beating heart of modern-day India that lay bare its caldron of inequalities, injustices and cultural traditions. The first, 2010's "Witness the Night," won the Costa first novel award — and deservedly so; it somehow managed to deal with female infanticide in India without ever resorting to heavy-handed polemic.
That it worked so well was in no small part thanks to Desai's engaging social worker-cum-detective protagonist Simran Singh. So it makes sense that she returns for the followup, "Origins of Love" — but this time she finds herself entangled in India's shockingly prevalent surrogacy industry.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.