The Thursday Night Murder Club and No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency would meet their match with The Bandit Queens. Where the former titles involve affable do-gooders with the common sense needed to solve their community’s problems, here we have gossipy housewives who watch too many crime dramas and are keen to off their husbands. That said, these women are charming.
Five years ago, Geeta’s good-for-nothing drunk of a husband ran off. The village believes she killed him, and the rumour persists, to the point where Geeta is ostracized from friends and others in the small community. She’s a member of a micro-loan club and when one of the members doesn’t show up with her weekly repayment, it’s left to Geeta—widowed and childless—to foot the bill so the whole loan group doesn’t go under. Instead of that endearing her amongst the women, one of whom is her former best friend, Geeta finds herself being blackmailed by the woman she help.
Turns out that Geeta’s reputation for getting rid of a n’er-do-well husband has the attention of the other wives who would also like to be widows. Geeta has some tricky cards to play, and she does not have a good poker face.
Parini Shroff’s debut novel is a wonderfully funny, a macabre, look at life in an Indian village. There’s witty women, sneaky husbands, minor criminals, unwitting accomplices, terrible dark crimes, caste hierarchies, sexism, and all manor of distractions and disruptions in this small village. This is one hell of a debut.
Published by Penguin Random House Canada
Watch the Barnes & Noble BookClub YouTube channel: Parini Shroff discusses The Bandit Queens