Kalpana SwaminathanKalpana Swaminathan lives a few streets away from her detective, and like Lalli, finds her city an endless source of enchantment. Her other novels are Ambrosia for Afters [2003] and Bougainvillea House [2005]. Her book of short sories, Venus Crossing, won the Crossword Fiction Award for 2009. She shares the nom de plume Kalpish Ratna with Ishrat Syed. They're both surgeons who've written four books together: The Quarantine Papers and The Nalanda Chronicles, Nyagrodha, the first book of the Panchatantra reimagined for our time and Once Upon a Hill, the story of the dying and lost hills of Bombay. Their forthcoming book Room 000: Narratives of the Bombay Plaguetells the forgotten story of 1896. Read More Read Less