At a dig in the city of Meluhha, better known as Mohenjo Daro or the Mound of the Dead, a tomb is discovered containing a mysterious box of beaten copper. Layla, interning archaeologist, is drawn towards the box like a magnet. She opens it and all hell breaks loose. Or so we can imagine because the action shifts to Nadia Osborne, Layla’s half-sister who writes horror stories and is recovering from an abusive childhood spent surrounded by her father’s cult.
Nadia is jolted into action at her sister’s disappearance, having recently recovered from substance abuse and found her family again after her father’s reported death. The word is that a terrorist attack has destroyed the archaeological team at Meluhha triggered by Layla. Nadia refuses to believe this and sets out in search of the truth with a mysterious blonde man on her tail.
There is the dream of a woman called Jaya which keeps recurring in Nadia’s subconscious. The story of a woman who can read the mysterious Bloodstone that holds a fragment of the Goddess Shakari’s heart. Nadia’s quest for her sister and the story of Jaya crisscross and there is the sense of a parallel past and present that begins to form.
Maha Khan Phillips writes a pacey story though her heroines whether past or present have a tendency to vomit — the Bloodstone presumably triggers migraines. She has also done her research into ancient civilisations thoroughly, not to mention reading the Mahabharata for the description of the effects of a weapon of mass destruction that predated the atom bomb by several thousand years. Most readers are aware that the Ancients were far more advanced than they had a right to be, with their knowledge of town planning, agriculture and hygiene. Phillips continues the theory suggesting that they had super powers but does not tread into two powers battling to steal an ancient weapon territory. Instead she creates a slightly different scenario and a weapon that can be controlled by anyone who has a strong will.
She also goes with the theory that history repeats itself in families and that mystic powers can be inherited. This is in the end a thriller dominated by women — with the mind acting as the ultimate weapon in a patriarchal male dominated society. A woman who pulls her punches, Phillips hints, loses and in the end we are left alone to accept the consequence of our choices.
