It is a story that no one likes to put down until one reaches the last page. Assistant Professor Renée Dey falls foul of her senior colleagues at work. She had everything a woman yearns for – sharp brain, disarming beauty, superb academic record and communication skills. Yet, the prime asset of her youth – her beauty – becomes her vulnerability. Her life is devastated as she loses her father, her prestige, and then her will to live. She is up against the monsters lurking in the corridors of the ‘Temple of Learning’. Little known to the world outside the precincts of this ‘Temple’, it is the Professoriate Mafia that makes the vulnerable submit to their lustful intrigues. But Renee is different. She finally dares the monsters of this patriarchal system that devours the feminity itself. She is joined by a feisty student leader in her fight to survive.

Major Shaurya Singh lands in the middle of this melee. He is drawn into the vortex of this vicious struggle between virtue and vice, good and evil. He dives headlong into the cesspool of corruption, nepotism, male ego and virulent caste politics in his bid to unravel and unmask the mafia. He struggles with his own ghosts as he fights an enemy unknown, uncertain and unpredictable in a place unlike the war zone. In the muddy waters of this ‘Temple of Learning,’ he discovers layer upon layer of contradiction.

It is a stunning tale of hidden truths that remain suppressed under the aura of big names and imposing facades. Narrated in a ravishing style, it holds the reader bound to it from the beginning to the end. It may be just another jewel added to the contemporary Indian English fiction.