A Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta
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The prolific and well-traveled Theroux follows Ghost Train to the Eastern Star with a crime novel set in India. Jerry Delfont, a middle-aged travel writer, has ended up in Calcutta with no stories, no ideas, and no clear direction until he receives a letter from Mrs. Merrill Unger asking for his help. Rajat, a friend of Mrs. Unger's son, woke up in a cheap hotel with the dead body of a boy on the floor of his room and fled, rightly untrusting of the police. Jerry meets the Mrs. Unger and falls under her spell, his obsession fueled by her beauty and her skill at tantric massage. Mrs. Unger, who runs a children's charity, came to India to work with Mother Teresa, but soon joined "the temple across the street" dedicated to Kali and is a practicing priestess who doesn't shirk at the goddess's requirement of animal sacrifice. While it's all good light fun, the real pleasure is Theroux's talent for rendering place and his irreverent comments on everything from the British royals to pop culture, aging, and yes, the venerable Mother Teresa. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Murder and mystery in Calcuttabut not a typical murder mystery. The hyperprolific Theroux (Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, 2008, etc.) returns to India for the setting of this narrative, for perhaps only the enigmatic mystique of that country can frame the unconventionality of his characters. Travel writer Jerry Delfont, his life deadened by lack of purpose, is experiencing the "dead hand" of writer's block. Amid his existential ennui he receives a letter from a Merrill Unger informing him that a body had been discovered in the hotel room in which a friend of Mrs. Unger's son was staying. She fears that this friend, who fled the scene, might be held accountable for murder and hopes Delfont might be able to help. While Delfont is no detective, he's sufficiently intrigued by the letter to meet Mrs. Unger. His encounter with her, rather than the body in a sketchy hotel room, becomes the center of the novel. Unger is an American who dresses in saris, speaks Bengali and is obviously well off. She's generous, charming and dangerously alluring. She's also a devotee of the goddess Kali and a student of Tantric sex. At first mildly attracted, Delfont eventually becomes besotted with her. Aroused by her as a practitioner of Tantric massage and both appalled and fascinated when he witnesses the sacrifice of a goat at a temple dedicated to Kali, he begins to live a double life, hiding his obsession (most amusingly when he runs into another travel writernamed Paul Therouxwhom he describes as a "flitting, pitiless man"). As Delfont continues to pursue the story of the murdersupposedly to please Ungerhe investigates his only evidence, the victim's "dead hand," which has no fingerprints. This enigma leads him to a sordid underworld in which child labor is exploited and casual cruelty is visited upon the most vulnerable in Indian society. A novel of extremesrationality and obsession, humanitarianism and selfishness, ecstasy and heartlessness. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Disaffected journalist Jerry Delfont picks up the pace when he is asked to investigate the death of a child and meets the charismatic Merrill Unger, a devotee of Kali. Set in India, like Theroux's recent story collection, The Elephanta Suite, which earned an LJ rave. Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

The prolific and well-traveled Theroux follows Ghost Train to the Eastern Star with a crime novel set in India. Jerry Delfont, a middle-aged travel writer, has ended up in Calcutta with no stories, no ideas, and no clear direction until he receives a letter from Mrs. Merrill Unger asking for his help. Rajat, a friend of Mrs. Unger's son, woke up in a cheap hotel with the dead body of a boy on the floor of his room and fled, rightly untrusting of the police. Jerry meets the Mrs. Unger and falls under her spell, his obsession fueled by her beauty and her skill at tantric massage. Mrs. Unger, who runs a children's charity, came to India to work with Mother Teresa, but soon joined "the temple across the street" dedicated to Kali and is a practicing priestess who doesn't shirk at the goddess's requirement of animal sacrifice. While it's all good light fun, the real pleasure is Theroux's talent for rendering place and his irreverent comments on everything from the British royals to pop culture, aging, and yes, the venerable Mother Teresa. (Feb.)