The Good Girls
An Ordinary Killing
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4.2 • 11 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
On a summer night in 2014, Padma and Lalli went missing from Katra Sadatganj, an eye-blink of a village in western Uttar Pradesh. Hours later they were found hanging in the orchard behind their home. Who they were, and what had happened to them, was already less important than what their disappearance meant to the people left behind.
Slipping deftly behind political maneuvering, caste systems and codes of honor in a village in northern India, The Good Girls returns to the scene of their short lives and shameful deaths, and dares to ask: What is the human cost of shame?
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The sensitive, first-rate reporting of Goa-born investigative journalist Sonia Faleiro is the beating heart of this true-crime story. When sweet, obedient cousins Padma and Lalli were found brutally murdered, hanging from a mango tree outside of their rural village in northern India, it sparked outrage that transcended borders. Faleiro digs into the gritty details of the case, shining a harsh light on the state of criminal justice in a region so conservative that many considered the killings justified simply because Padma had been seen using a cell phone unsupervised. Faleiro’s intense descriptions of police corruption, indifferent politicians, and an enduring caste system make us feel like we’re right alongside her as she tries to figure out who was sending Padma messages—and who deleted them after her death. With its one-two punch of painstaking research and unceasing compassion, The Good Girls is a gripping account of Faleiro’s fearless quest for justice.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this powerful account, Faleiro (Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars) tells the tragic story of two cousins, 16-year-old Padma Shakya and 14-year-old Lalli Shakya, who grew up in a village in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Padma and Lalli, who tended the family's goats, disappeared one night in 2014. They were found the next morning hanging from a mango tree. Was it rape and murder, or suicide? Months of bungling police, corrupt politicians, lying witnesses, and missing evidence resulted in the arrests of Padma's boyfriend, his two brothers, and two police officers in a case of a gang rape gone wrong. When officers of the Central Bureau of Investigation, India's equivalent of the FBI, took over the botched case, they concluded it was suicide, not murder, and the girls took their own lives out of shame after being caught in a field with a boy. In incisive prose, Faleiro, who offers no opinion on what actually happened, examines India's family honor system and the grueling lives of lower caste women. True crime buffs will be fascinated.
