THE GANJA COAST

More Indian intrigue—drugs, politics, and an illicit land grab—for Bombay lawyer George Sansi (Season of the Monsoon, 1993). Sansi's shrewd former boss, crime commissioner Narendra Jamal, wants him to travel to Goa, a coastal town fabled as a haven for aging hippies, to gather evidence that Rajiv Banerjee, the crooked new minister for economic development, is moving drugs and spearheading an attempt to buy up every available parcel of land before the new free port at Goa is announced. Only prompt action, Jamal warns darkly, can discredit Banerjee before his allies honeycomb the government. The stage seems set for an Indian remake of The Untouchables, with blue-eyed, Oxford- educated Sansi in the Kevin Costner role, hunkering down to consult with Jamal's thoroughly intimidated local contacts and spying on the warehouses of Prem Gupta, Banerjee's main man in Goa. Until: (1) Sansi's American lover, Times of India reporter Annie Ginnaro, not content to decorate his hotel room, meets and likes Cora Betts, whose charismatic husband, Drew, is clearly prince of the Goa drug trade (shades of Tequila Sunrise); and (2) Cora's imperious, long-abandoned mother, Joy Gilman, turns up with her husband and the rest of her entourage, determined to rescue her grandchildren from the wicked, wicked ways of her son- in-law. These developments split up Sansi and Ginnaro, who's determined to protect the Betts kids from their gale-force grandmother, even though Sansi is convinced that the apparent drowning of 9-year-old Sara Betts's best friend is really the work of a killer who could strike anywhere. Cleverly plotted—the drug scam at the heart of the mystery is both ingenious and chilling—and as overripe as its setting and genre demand.