A masterly and agenda-setting inquest into how the deaths of two teenage girls shone a light into the darkest corners of a nation

**Longlisted for the ALCS Gold Non-Fiction Dagger**
**Longlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize 2022**

‘Haunting … lingers in the mind long after the final page is turned’ Sunday Times
‘A compelling whodunnit ... Devastating’ Financial Times
‘Transfixing’ New York Times
‘A powerful, unflinching account of misogyny, female shame and the notion of honour’ Observer
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A masterly and agenda-setting inquest into how the deaths of two teenage girls shone a light into the darkest corners of a nation

Katra Sadatganj. A tiny village in western Uttar Pradesh. A community bounded by tradition and custom; where young women are watched closely, and know what is expected of them.

It was an ordinary night when two girls, Padma and Lalli, went missing. The next day, their bodies were found – hanging in the orchard, their clothes muddied.

In the ensuing months, the investigation into their deaths would implode everything that their small community held to be true, and instigated a national conversation about sex, honour and violence.

The Good Girls returns to the scene of Padma and Lalli’s short lives and shocking deaths, daring to ask: what is the human cost of shame?

"Sonia Faleiro ’s meticulously researched investigation results in a powerful, unflinching account of misogyny, female shame and the notion of honour" - Observer

"Faleiro’s pithy, cliffhanging chapters fuse true crime with big-picture analysis, blending data with interviews and detail ... A powerful indictment of a society failing its most vulnerable members" - Economist

"At once shocking and mundane, quiet and loud, understated and savage" - Times Literary Supplement

"Transfixing; it has the pacing and mood of a whodunit, but no clear reveal" - New York Times

"A puzzle with a surprise at the end ... A riveting, terrible tale, one all too common, but Faleiro’s gorgeous prose makes it bearable" - New York Times Book Review

"A desperate reflection on the status of women ... Faleiro has taken exceptional pains to recreate the events as they unfolded" - Spectator

"Traces the tragic mystery surrounding the deaths of two teenagers found hanging in an Indian mango orchard" - New York Times, Recommended Reads

"A compelling whodunnit ... Faleiro writes sensitively about her subjects’ actions and motivations, while the investigation reaches its final devastating revelation" - Financial Times

"A compassionate, timely and necessary book that explores the issues of sex, violence, shame, honour and what it is to be a girl growing up in modern India" - Literary Review

"Searing ... A riveting - sometimes astonishing - work of forensic journalism that chronicles the girls’ lives as well as the circumstances of their death" - Wall Street Journal

"A major piece of reportage ... Makes for tough but necessary reading" - Cosmopolitan Online, 69 books by Black and POC authors out in 2021

"A stunning look at an investigation that was more about caste culture, poverty and the oppression of women than justice" - People

"Praise for Sonia Faleiro: ‘A tour de force of reportage, whose depth, insight and resonance make it the equal of the best fiction" - SUNDAY TIMES

"A tour de force of heartrending reportage ... which blends rigorous journalistic research with the narrative skills of a novelist" - INDEPENDENT

"[An] intimate and valuable book of literary reportage that will break your heart several times over" - NEW YORK TIMES

"It is useless to describe the pathos and singular power of this book" - SPECTATOR

"So compelling that it invites from us the question of exactly what might constitute genius in non-fiction" - THE NATIONAL

"Brilliant ... It's most outstanding quality to my eye is the window it offers on the widespread sexual repression that exists in India today, and the murky middle-class morality that rules it" - GUARDIAN

"She manages to evoke shock, rage, and laughter … A moving testament" - LITERARY REVIEW