Longlisted for the ALCS Gold Non-Fiction Dagger
Longlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize 2022
'Haunting … lingers in the mind long after the final page is turned' Sunday Times
'A compelling whodunnit ... Devastating' Financial Times
'Transfixing' New York Times
'A powerful, unflinching account of misogyny, female shame and the notion of honour' Observer
An extraordinary and defining investigation into how the deaths of two teenage girls illuminate the darkest corners of a country.
In Katra Sadatganj, a small village in western Uttar Pradesh, a community constrained by tradition and customs closely monitors young women and knows what is expected of them.
It was an ordinary night when two girls, Padma and Lalli, disappeared. The next day, their bodies were found—hanging in the orchard, their clothes soiled.
In the following months, the investigation into their deaths shattered everything their small community held as truth and sparked a national conversation about sex, honor, and violence.
"Good Girls" returns to the scene of Padma and Lalli's brief lives and shocking deaths, daring to ask: what is the human cost of shame?
