The Monochrome Madonna

by Kalpana Swaminathan

English 272 pages 1 edition

While answering a distraught call from her friend Sitara, Sita, detective Lalli’s niece, discovers a body in an empty flat—a hulking salesman with his head bashed in. However, more than the crime, Sita finds herself distracted by a print of Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, which hangs in the living room. Why is the iconic Renaissance painting in a single colour? And what is its connection with the corpse on the living room floor? The Madonna seems hardly relevant to the police in their hunt for the murderer. But Lalli, the last resort for unsolvable crimes, thinks otherwise.