It was a dull and grey day, and the evening air was ashy with pollution and matched my mood when I decided to catch up with my reading. Amongst the many books on my TBR pile, I decided to start The Body in the Swimming Pool by Shabnam Minwalla because the first few sentences hooked me in straight away: ‘Sunday evenings are grim. The light is thin and grey, the air is heavy, and the mood is as soggy as wet socks.’
The narrator of these evocative sentences is fourteen-year-old Paromita Mehta, whose school nickname is ‘Mehti-culous’. She plans to be a physicist and researcher, but as she admits, in her more ‘frivolous moments, I daydream about being a detective’.