The Friend Who Stayed Silent at Platform Nine

By Prashant Mishra

Arjun Nair has built a careful life as a law intern in a border town in Punjab, avoiding the questions that ended an old friendship. At 27, that restraint collapses when Arjun is offered money to withdraw a harmless-looking public records request. The return of a colleague who may be protecting the culprit makes the search both intimate and unreliable. Their evidence suggests that an unsolved disappearance links three respected families. Then a friend is arrested using evidence the protagonist uncovered. To protect the wrongfully accused, Arjun may have to choose love without ignoring what the beloved concealed. The clue hidden in a child’s map of places adults deny exist proves that the crime was real, but its accepted date was wrong. Meanwhile, the protagonist must restore an erased mural, while the collaborator may be feeding information to the opposition.