Plans for Departure - Softcover

Nayantara Sahgal

3.06

18 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 8172235240 ISBN 13: 9788172235246

Publisher: Harpercollins Publishers, 2004

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For the eminent scientist Sir Nitin Basu, spending the summer of 1914 at a remote hill station in the Himalayas, the arrival of a single Danish woman hired as his secretary by his sister didi is as alarming as an invasion. Tall, fair, unconventional Miss Anna Hansen is a feminist, a woman ahead of her times, enjoying a year of travel before her marriage to an English diplomat. Before her short stay in Himapur is over, she will have come dangerously close to loving another man, stumbled on the evidence, she believes, of a secret crime, and been shaken by a violet and mysterious death.

Making up the small European community in Himapur are the missionary Marlowe Croft, a bullying, obsessive man determined at all costs to build a Christian church in the hills; his shrill, foolish wife Lulu, the chief obstacle to his mission; and the district Magistrate Henry Brewster, an enigmatic figure, ill-at-ease with the imperial authority he represents. Deserted by his wife Stella, for whom ge gave up his dreams of a new political life in England, he is still consumed with love for her. Anna s fascination with rewster, her involvement in India s growing political unrest, lead her to reconsider her future, but a horrific accident and a startling find in a forest glade make it impossible for her to stay. Tormented by unanswered questions, Anna makes her plans for departure, as the intimate tragedies of Himapur are swept away by the cataclysm of war.

Plans for Departure is both a love story and mystery, set in a continent poised for revolution and a world on the edge of war. Nayantara Sahgal has a written a new novel of haunting power and superb craftsmanship, rich in intrigue, gentle humour and exquisite observation....

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From Library Journal:

Plans for Departure is set in the hill station of Himapur in India, on the eve of World War II. An elderly Indian scientist, alone with his new Danish secretary, has taken a summer cottage to continue his research. Other members of the local ``gentry'' are a dynamic missionary and his boorish wife, and the local magistrate who has become disillusioned with British rule in India. The plot turns around the secretary, Anna, her sympathies to the Indian independence movement, and her reaction to the mysterious disappearances of the magistrate's wife and murder of the missionary's wife. Although somewhat dry and slow moving, the intelligent writing and popular setting will make this novel appeal to some readers. Janet Boyarin Blundell, M.L.S., Wanamassa, N.J.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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