The great Raja Vikramaditya is assigned a task by the tantric yogi Kshantisheela. He is told by the holy man to bring him a corpse that is hanging on a shisham tree. This leads to a battle of wills between the raja and the vetala that has possessed the corpse. Every time the raja tries to haul the corpse to the tantric, the ghostly trickster begins to narrate a tale that he says will end with a riddle that the raja must solve: all that the vetala tells the raja is that if he knows the answer and doesn’t give it, his head will shatter into a thousand pieces. The stories he tells and answers he demands are the vetala’s way of testing the raja to make sure he is worthy of the rewards the vetala intends to bestow on him (instead of on the yogi, whom the vetala has deemed unworthy). Will the clever raja finally manage to carry the ghoul to the tantric yogi? Will he be able to outmanoeuvre the vetala? Will he be able to negotiate the lies, intrigues, and deceptions hurled at him?

Bestselling author Meena Arora Nayak brings to vivid life the ancient text of Vetala Panchavimshati in The Undead Ghoul and the Clever Raja. Drawing from multiple sources—including the versions of Shivadasa and Jambhaladatta, Somadeva’s Kathasaritsagara, and Lallu Lal’s Baital Pachisi—she weaves together the best elements of this extraordinary feat of the imagination. In all, there are twenty-four curveball tales narrated by the vetala—the frame story is the twenty-fifth tale. At one level, this is a classic book of horror—the descriptions of secret rituals that resuscitate the dead, a chilling prologue about murder and deceit, and the backdrop of a cremation ground succeed in creating an eerie atmosphere and the vetala is a sinister and creepy figure.

However, what makes this a masterpiece that transcends its genre is the manner in which the tales range across and probe subjects like life, love, sexuality, human desire, the vagaries of human nature and death (especially unnatural ones like murder and suicide). The blend of suspense, wit, and philosophical enquiry to be found in this masterful retelling of one of India’s most intriguing works of classical literature should win it a wide audience of contemporary readers.