Plans For Departure

For the eminent scientist Sir Nitin Basu, spending the summer of 1914 at a remote hill station in the Himalayas, the arrival of a single Danish woman - hired as his secretary by his sister didi - is as alarming as an invasion. Tall, fair, unconventional Miss Anna Hansen is a feminist, a woman ahead of her time, enjoying a year of travel before her marriage to an English diplomat. Before her short stay in Himapur is over, she will have come dangerously close to loving another man, stumbled on the evidence, she believes, of a secret crime, and been shaken by a violet and mysterious death. Plans for Departure is both a love story and mystery, set in a continent poised for revolution and a world on the edge of war. Nayantara Sahgal has a written a new novel of haunting power and superb craftsmanship, rich in intrigue, gentle humour and exquisite observation.