No case is too strange or too baffling for the policeman George Felse and his son, Dominic. Over 13 instalments and two decades, the Felse Investigations will take them from their home on the Welsh Borders to the southernmost tip of India.

When his girlfriend's beautiful but erratic filmstar mother Chloe calls to ask a favour, Dominic Felse fears the worst. But she makes the couple an offer they can't refuse: an all-expenses-paid trip to India to escort 14-year-old Anjili Kumar, the daughter of Chloe's co-star, to stay with her father while her mother is filming in England.

But Dominic's fears are not unfounded as they soon discover that travelling with the spoilt, precocious Anjili is no sinecure – and the task of delivering her back to her family proves less than easy. Dominic and Theodosia find themselves embroiled in a mystery that swiftly and shockingly becomes a murder investigation. For behind the colourful, smiling mask of India that the tourist sees is another country – remote, mysterious – and often shatteringly brutal...