Black River by Nilanjana Roy

Nilanjana Roy is a journalist, so it is no surprise that her crime novel Black River has much more on its mind than the horrific crime that it opens with. Roy uses that event to explore some of the flash points in modern India – religious intolerance, rampant development and corruption. But Roy also wants to explore how, despite all of those pressures, many people still look out for and support each other, or act morally by stepping outside of the box that society tries to put them in.

Black River opens with eight-year-old Munia and her father Chand who farms a small plot of family land on the edge of the small Indian village of Teetarpur, a few hours outside of Delhi. Not long after this brief introduction Munia is killed after witnessing the murder of another woman. Munia’s body is discovered by Mansoor, a local vagrant who is immediately accused of the crime despite a lack of evidence. The local police are under pressure not just from their superiors, but also from the townsfolk who want the police to release Mansoor into their custody so that they can impose their own form of justice.

Before much of the investigation happens, Roy takes readers back for a lengthy digression into Chand’s history. How he left Teetarpur as a young man and the life he made for himself in Delhi before returning. This, more than anything, provides the shape of Black River, which is as interested in the villagers, the local police and their relationships as it is in solving the crime. Much is made, for example, of the lives of two of Chand’s Muslim friends in Delhi – the butcher Badshah who gives him a job and livelihood and Rabia the wife of his best friend – both of whom face religious intolerance in their neighbourhoods. Roy also focusses on the lead local investigator Ombir who takes regular cash payments and other inducements from the local landowner Jolly Singh but keeps digging even while he is under pressure not to investigate.

The crime and its investigation lift a rock on much that is plaguing modern India. The corruption and graft that seems to infect every part of life, the exploitation of the poor and vulnerable, the weaponisation of religion. But Roy is also alive to a sense of community – of the people who rally around and support Chand, of Ombir’s drive to find justice for Munia despite what it might do to his career prospects. In focussing on these characters and their journeys Roy finds a way to bring light and hope into what is otherwise a pretty dark story.

Black River fits squarely within the global phenomenon of ‘rural crime’, which has been a calling card for many Australian authors. As usual in this type of crime novel, the small town setting is used as a microcosm of larger issues affecting the country as a whole in a way that readers can come to terms with and relate to. Roy uses her Teetarpur setting extremely well, bringing the village to life, and uses her journalistic eye to investigate and illuminate a range of dark and worrying issues. And Roy manages to do all this with compassion and a deep understanding of her characters and their lives, so that even when those characters go to dark places readers will be willing to go with them.

Black River by Nilanjana Roy

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8.0/10