The Good Girls

An Ordinary Killing

A masterly and agenda-setting inquest into how the deaths of two teenage girls shone a light into the darkest corners of a nation

Katra Sadatganj. A tiny village in western Uttar Pradesh. A community bounded by tradition and custom; where young women are watched closely, and know what is expected of them.

It was an ordinary night when two girls, Padma and Lalli, went missing. The next day, their bodies were found hanging in the orchard, their clothes muddied.

In the ensuing months, the investigation into their deaths would implode everything that their small community held to be true, and instigated a national conversation about sex, honour and violence.

The Good Girls returns to the scene of Padma and Lalli's short lives and shocking deaths, daring to ask — what is the human cost of shame?

'Narrative reportage at its best. Just extraordinary' — Fatima Bhutto

'A page-turner, a feminist text, and an essential read that is deeply empathetic' — Deepa Anappara, author of Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line