About the Book It was an old building in Mumbai, a wretched imitation of Hawa Mahal. Built by a rich jeweller as homage to his adulterated love. It wasn t cursed but it might as well have been. Bad deeds don t go unpunished. Forbidden love extracts a price. This is a story about a blackmailer and serial killer hiding in plain sight. It is also a story about Smita, a troubled housewife trapped in a bad marriage, and about Jai, an honest police officer desperate to prove himself, but stymied at every step by a crooked boss and a corrupt system. When a series of murders take place in a posh locality in Mumbai, Jai watches with horror as his colleagues scramble to save the Chief Minister s son and frame an innocent man. As the body count rises, he has to ask himself whether he has what it takes to catch the killer. Smita, struggling to come to terms with the dark secrets in her husband Karan s mysterious past, gets sucked into a world of deceit and treachery. Unsure of whom to trust, she must first fight her own inner demons before she can save herself. About the Author N. J. Kulkarni is a journalist and writer who has worked for almost all major publications in India, either fulltime or as a freelancer. Writing fiction and newspaper features with equal ease, the Pune-based writer is also a hand-reader. She can be contacted through her website: