A crime novel set in a fictional Bihar after a statewide liquor ban. It follows how prohibition creates a dark market, and who ends up paying for it.
Story: On the first night of the ban, Sukhdev "Sukkhu" Mahto, a poor sharecropper with two daughters and a sick father, is recruited by the local liquor kingpin Bindu. He starts as a lookout and is slowly pulled into smuggling, fake liquor and gang wars fought with heavy weapons coming from the Northeast. When a rushed batch of spurious liquor kills twelve villagers, the administration covers it up and tries to pin the blame on a rival gangster. A young reporter, Neha Jha, and a determined SP, Anuradha Sinha, try to expose the nexus of police, politicians and smugglers. Their efforts are crushed when the government changes, the ban is repealed, cases are withdrawn, and the powerful walk away.