In the dusty cantonments of British India, where the heat hangs heavy and social ambition burns just as hot, a young woman named Lalla arrives to make her debut. Her aunt Mrs. Langrishe sees dollar signs in her niece's beauty, while the surrounding matrons scheme and gossip about suitable matches. The men, meanwhile, seem mostly concerned with the 'awkwardness' of having a third person in a house built for two. Croker dissects the petty rivalries and desperate calculations of colonial society with a satirist's eye: these are people for whom marriage is portfolio management and a young woman's looks are currency to be invested. The dialogue crackles with double meanings and the social code of the era is rendered both absurd and painfully real. For readers who relish the comedies of manners tradition, or who want to understand what kept the British empire running (it wasn't administration), this is a window into a world where love is secondary to landholdings and a woman's prospects are discussed as casually as the weather.
