No Title
Ira Saxena
CHILDREN OF THE HIDDEN LAND by Mandira Shah Talking Cub, Speaking Tiger Books, 2021, 224 pp., 499.00
November 2022, volume 46, No 11

The story takes off on the school terrace with a young student manipulating a surveillance drone that captures a deadly secret of missing children and a shadowy figure known only as the Dragon. Two teenagers, April, a resident of Imphal and Shalini from the mainland living there with her father, an army man, jump into the plot to unravel the secrets running below the surface of this land, confronted at the onset, with the disappearance of a bright young boy handling the drone.

Action launches in full swing where there are no leads, only the sharp deduction and combat skills of the two girls. A dangerous world of drugs, cross-border smuggling of gold and child trafficking for expansion of the insurgent army are laid bare in their investigations. So does the scenery of the North East, far away to the fresh water Loktak Lake.

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