The Rann of Kutch is an arid, brazen piece of earth in the northwest of India. At best it’s a vast expanse of barren land, ravaged by the desiccating heat, ‘a hat so bright that the skin roasts’, a sun so relentless that by dusk you are wishing it would sink or call it a day. Of course, on the surface it provides no solace or comfort. It produces a few thorny bushes and stray bitter shrubs. In the land of shifting sands, if you so much as dare to breathe or remove the lid, the problems simmer under the surface of modern day India. Sujata Sabnis’ Blood on the Sands is a fast-paced murder mystery that is guaranteed to rivet your attention from the very first page.
Set against the backdrop of the inhospitable yet strangely beautiful, surreal expanse that can, oftener than not, be ruthlessly hard on those who live there, is this story. Should you sit quietly, on a patch of desert, you will hear whispers of the sand-laden wind telling you many a story.
Some will leave you yearning for more. Others will tear you asunder. For crueller than the Rann is the human heart. Sometimes you will hear the wind whispering the story of a murder, stories that will burn themselves into your consciousness to ruin your peace.
Quiet Mankor stays in Kuran, the last Indian village near the Indo-Pak border, which looms just five kilometres away. She is bringing up her two children, Samar and Ranu, while her husband Virender is a tracker at the Border Security Force headquarters in Rapar. Virender comes back home in time for the Navratri celebrations—the nine nights of the goddess. He is triumphant after having nabbed Shaukat, a member of a militant outfit involved in a terror plot against India.
Wait! There is more to come after the terrible news that is on its way to Kuran. Soon after, Virender gets murdered under mysterious circumstances. His boss, Commandant Ranbir, connects it to the unravelling terror plot. But is there something he has missed? With a 508-km-long electric fence for solace, is there something he has missed or overlooked? And soon after little Ranu goes missing! As Ranbir sets out to seek the truth, he discovers a terrifying web of deceit. Will he be able to save Ranu or find Virender’s killer and save India?
For it is not easy to defeat evil. It has no body, no arms, no legs. It has no face, no voice, not even breath. It can live silently, invisibly in human minds. How do you defeat wickedness which leaves no shadow? How do you contain the dark that cannot be defined? That day of the kill, it wasn’t just a human being who died, a sliver of humanity died too. Read on! It cannot get better than this.