In the beautiful author’s note that concludes Sonia Faleiro’s The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing (Penguin Random House, 2021), Faleiro connects the brutal 2012 Delhi bus rape to the deaths of the two young Indian children that are the subject of her book. The gang rape and murder of a young medical student in Delhi becomes an important point of comparison for Faleiro’s text and the case she examines: the death of two young girls in a rural Indian village. The girls went missing one night after they left their home to use bathroom. After the girls didn’t return, family members and neighbours went searching for them. Eventually they were found in the early hours of the next morning, their deceased bodies hanging from a tree. In an attempt to make sense of this horrific occurrence, Faleiro refers back to the Delhi bus rape case, saying that although she didn’t personally know the Delhi rape victim, she was very effected by the case, as were many women in India. When the details of the rape and murder became known, the rape culture ever-present in India was now not as easy to ignore. The Delhi bus rape provides important context for the deaths of the two rural girls, whose names, as we learn, remain a mystery.

A few pages over, Faleiro explains that she did not use the real names of the two girls whose deaths her book investigates. Instead, she called the girls Padma and Lalli. She uses pseudonyms in compliance with Indian law. This law did not allow the names of rape victims to be used by the media. Of course, this was also a factor in the Delhi bus rape case. Faleiro’s text builds on details like these in order to ask questions about the cultural and political circumstances that were the perfect breeding ground for the deaths of Padma and Lalli as well as the rape and murder of the Delhi bus rape victim.

Indian law forbidding the girls to be named made me wonder. The same culture that asked rape and murder victims not to be named had no problem sharing photos of the bodies of Padma and Lalli in the newspapers and on Facebook. Faleiro explains that eventually, the family of the Delhi bus rape victim was named publicly in an effort to reclaim her memory. Although she doesn’t use Padma and Lalli’s actual names, Faleiro’s book reclaims and repurposes their memories by exposing the wholly inadequate investigations into their deaths.

Calling the investigation into these deaths inadequate truly does not capture how botched this investigation was. After the girls were found chaos ensued. Family members claimed they saw someone from the village with the girls on the night they initially disappeared. The police were eventually called but they did virtually no investigative or forensic work, and the initial autopsies were done by someone without a medical degree. The family of Padma and Lalli refused to allow the police to cut the girls down until politicians visited the scene and the media took photos and videos of the crime scene. I was initially horrified by this—anyone who’s interested in crime and criminology knows that those bodies needed to be cut down as soon as possible in order to ensure that all physical evidence could be collected and analysed. Evidence was being lost the longer the bodies were exposed to the elements. But the more I learned about Indian politics and rape culture, the more I understood that this family was right to insist that they not be cut down: the only way their deaths would even matter to the politicians and the law is if these brutal images of the girls were circulated. No one could ignore those images.

Faleiro uses this case to expose and explain the systems in place within India that treat women’s lives and deaths as less-than, as totally unworthy of anyone’s care or attention. If you are looking to understand more about Indian law and Indian politics, this book is for you. I found this part of the book to be a bit heavy-handed. Because the sections of the book that discuss Indian politics are not always interspersed with information from the case, the political content sometimes felt like unnecessary contextualization. Some of this context is extremely important to the case; however, I do think this information could have been cut down and better integrated within the summary of the case.

I also found the timeline of events to be confusing—there are a lot of people involved in this story, and there is a lot of information given about these people. I often found this to be distracting from the main thread of the text, especially when Faleiro gives background information on the politicians that were involved in the case. The timeline of events would have been clearer had this information been cut down or better integrated into the story of the case. That being said, there is an immense amount of useful information provided about the caste system in India, Indian politics, and the way that India has historically dealt with crimes against women. If you are looking for this information, Falerio’s careful details are extremely useful.

There is a shocking twist that comes at the end of this book, one that I did not expect. After finishing the book, I was overwhelmed with sadness about this twist. I was also angry. Had the investigation been done properly and had the girls and their family been treated with any measure of respect or care by Indian authorities, there wouldn’t have been a gut-wrenching twist at the end of this story. Falerio spends a large portion of her book explaining the ways that cultural and political contexts in India have been creating opportunities for crimes against women for years. She also explores something potentially lesser known or at least less obvious: how familial politics and a woman’s place therein contributes to and creates crimes against women. Of familial politics in India she says that while public life and public places are extremely dangerous for Indian women, Padma and Lalli’s story highlights just how deadly the space of the home can also be. Social and gendered politics begin in the home, and are wholly responsible for the deaths of Padma and Lalli. The Good Girls memorializes Padma and Lalli and takes to task the systems that ended their lives.

Jesyka Traynor is an academic living in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. When she’s not writing or researching her dissertation, she’s consuming all the true crime and non-fiction she can find time for. Jesyka holds two degrees in English literature and is currently pursuing a doctorate in contemporary Californian literature.

A copy of this proof was graciously provided to True Crime Index from Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review.

Trigger warnings: Sexual abuse of children, sexual assualt

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This was not the book for me. I tried to get to at least 100 pages and I struggled to do just that. I couldn't connect. I found it boring, and there wasn't anything in it that I wanted to know more about.

2/5 Stars

In Uttar Pradesh, India, two cousins and best friends are found hanging from a mango tree one morning. Padma and Lalli, had gone to relieve themselves in a nearby field the night before and then disappeared. In Sonia Faleiro's book, she has brought to life the system girls and women live in, the poor village they are from and the injustices the girls received even after their deaths. This book was disturbing to me in that I still can't believe women are treated with so little regard anywhere in this wold any more. I hate to see I enjoyed the book because of the subject but, the author did a good job, open our eyes and filling in the details she found.
Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Press for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

What really happened to Padma and Lalli in 2014? We'll never know- that's the clear message from this illuminating, thought provoking and distressing work of investigative journalism. Their village in Western Uttar Pradesh is a place I suspect few readers could find or want to spend time in. These two girls- cousins- disappeared one night and then were found hanging. They were failed, not only on that night, but by what went after. Girls are not valued here, and violence against them has been and apparently continues to be ignored. These girls could have faded into the memories of their families but they are now part of the international dialogue. Faleiro makes them come to life. She also does an excellent job of exploring the caste system, honor codes, and the Indian legal system. The official investigation leaves much to be desired and Faleiro has tried to rectify that. Will her book make a difference? Likely not but it's important because it shines light on the seriousness of the situation for young women in this society. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. Excellent if painful read.

Is it enough? Is it enough to be disgusted by the treatment of girls and women? Is it enough to report the killings, rapes, and mutilation? Probably not. Knowledge is power. But, then, power is power. Two young girls are murdered. Is there anything that can make it OK? No. And yet, we get to hear all of the reasons that it is justified. They should have known better. They should have. They shouldn't have. Every decision that went into the horrid treatment of young girls and women. They should have just done what they were told and what they weren't told but should have known and what they could not have possibly have known. To be female in these societies, in all societies, requires Good Girls to be omniscient. But no! Then they would be too powerful! What is the answer for young girls and women? Uprising? These books make me angry for all of them. How is this still a thing? There is no justification. There are no rules that could have been followed and yet allowed for what's been done. Maybe, just maybe, we should look beyond the female amongst us. They cannot be omniscient. Maybe the males could take some REAL responsibility.

People called them Padma Lalli like they were one person.’

On 27 May 2014, in the village of Katra Sadatgani in Uttar Pradesh, India, two teenaged girls went into the fields to relieve themselves before bed. They did not return. In the early hours of the following morning, their bodies were found hanging from a mango tree in the orchard tended by their families. Their bodies were to remain in that tree for some time.

We know those two girls as sixteen-year-old Padma* and fourteen-year-old Lalli*. They were cousins and best friends. *We do not know their real names as there is an Indian law which requires that the identity of the victims of certain crimes is kept private. The irony: a law which affords victims more privacy in death than they were ever accorded in life.

In this book, Ms Faleiro draws on official documents, interviews, and news reports to try to establish a timeline of events within the context of the environment in which the girls lived. Ms Faleiro describes the physical setting: a poor village, with no running water or sanitation (which is why the girls had to relieve themselves in the field); a rigid family structure, shaped by caste, custom and religion; and mistrust of (often corrupt) authorities.

This is a confronting and uncomfortable read. The girls are left hanging in the mango tree because their families believe that this is necessary in order to obtain justice. And once the girls are removed from the tree, inept handling and forensic processes mean mistakes are made, and erroneous conclusions are reached. Contradictory information is given by those interviewed; assumptions are made. The death of the girls is devastating for those left behind. But at every step the investigation is hampered. Honour becomes more important than truth.

What really happened to Padma and Lalli? I doubt that we will ever know.

In writing about this case, Ms Faleiro illustrates the complexity of life in India, the prevalence of crimes against women, the impact of tradition, and how mistrust shapes both investigation and witness accounts.
I finished this book wondering whether the situation has improved since Padma and Lalli died. This is not an easy book to read both because of the content and the amount of detail provided. The detail is necessary but can feel overwhelming.

‘Finally, while this is a story about the marginalisation and subjugation of women in India, it is also about what it means to be poor.’

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Grove Press for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Thank you to the author and Net Galley for an e-arc copy of the book in exchange for my review. What an unnecessary tragedy and all too uncommon in India. Author does a fair job of trying to lay the timeline and story out but it sure wasn't easy. A little repetitive but sometimes necessary. 3.5 stars

Sonia Faleiro's The Good Girls is a phenomenal piece of investigative journalism that follows the alleged gang rape and death of two teenage girls in Katra village of northern India's UP district in 2014. The case quickly rose to notoriety in India because it occurred close on the heels of another gang rape case in 2012 in a moving bus in the capital, New Delhi. The Katra case became a media spectacle because the parents refused to bring the body of the girls down - who were found hanging in an orchard - for forensic investigation because they seemingly wanted national attention to the plight of lower caste girls in villages in UP.

In The Good Girls Sonia Faleiro explores every angle of the case - honour killing / rape & murder / suicide - to come up with a convincing narrative on what exactly happened one summer night in 2014 that resulted in the death of two girls. Written in immersive prose with sparse embellishments, Faleiro patiently unravels the case through meticulous research with involved parties. The Good Girls reads like an unputdownable piece of crime fiction, painting a picture of rural India - rife with caste discrimination, women with no agency, corruption, politics and crushing patriarchy - except there is not one ounce of fantastical prose in the story.

If one ever wants to learn about the ineptitude of the Indian legal system, particularly in relation to women, you will have served up a choice dessert when you bite into a morsel of The Good Girls.The emphasis on womens' honor and the shame the community feels when this moral code is breached is so very difficult to understand. Parents will kill their own children if they trespass into the forbidden territory of what they determine is"defilement". In this nonfiction novel the author deeply researches into the mystery of 2 young girls, aged 14 and 16, living in Uttar Pradesh in 2014, who were found hanging from trees in an orchard. The parents refused to have them cut down, hoping for justice with more publicity. What follows is bungled interviews, corrupt politicians, incompetent police, and inhumane autopsies. More importantly, it raises many questions about caste, womanhood, power and brutality. The one thing I had difficulty with is keeping the characters straight, as they were numerous. The introduction does define them all but I had to keep a cheat sheet with their names and roles since I did not want to keep turning back to the beginning. This novel is ultimately an exploding look at honor and its price tag!

The book was interesting and was yet a little tiresome. It went into great depths describing the caste system and the villages that are still prevalent in India today. Yes there are many people that have cell phones but are poverty stricken and bound by the caste system and defacate in the fields. I speak from experience. Overall the book is a great insight into India and its culture and prejudices.

In 2014, two young Indian girls were discovered hanging from a mango tree not far from their village in Uttar Pradesh. The women of the family refused to allow the bodies to be taken down, knowing that the only way to get justice for their girls was to create a media storm. If the media did not arrive, the two deceased girls, like so many dead girls before them, would be forgotten -- lost in India's complex and corrupt criminal justice system that places little value on the lives of girls. Ultimately their deaths did not prove to be a case of kidnapping and rape, as first supposed and as is so common in India. But the events that informed their death were no less disturbing, as they suggest that poor girls in India are no more safe at home than they are out in the world. The year that Padma and Lalli went missing, 12, 361 people were kidnapped in Uttar Pradesh and across the country a child went missing every 8 minutes.

Author and journalist Sonia Faleiro painstakingly interweaves the various threads of this complex story about what it means to be female and poor in India -- a country that has rapidly modernized but where the lives of its poorest citizens are largely unchanged. In villages, such as Katra where the two girls resided, women have some education but are forbidden from working. Their behavior and their lives remain determined by unwritten codes of honor. People have cell phones, but still do not have indoor plumbing, instead squatting out in the fields. It is world where despite economic transformation in the cities, caste rules are still followed in the villages and where people have no reason to trust the police, who are as likely to abuse them as to help them. It is also a place where protecting the family honor outweighs the welfare of young girls or the discovery of truth.

While at times the author's attention to detail may be overwhelming, especially for the reader unfamiliar with Indian culture or politics, it is a remarkable piece of investigative journalism that shows the impact of honor codes, political maneuverings, systemic corruption, caste rules, and poverty at the most intimate level -- cutting short the lives of two young girls.