The Sentence

"This is a legal thriller set in a futuristic fantasy world. We are in a city-state that is riven in two – High Town, and the anarchist commune of Low Town. A hundred years ago, there was a political assassination followed by the revolution that birthed the commune. A constitution was brought in to create peace, but it was only designed to last a hundred years. That one hundred years is about to be up: enter the lawyers (or in this world, Guardians). Except that our protagonist, Guardian Nila, isn’t one of the Guardians chosen to work on the case. Still smarting from her disappointment, she is contacted by the great-granddaughter of the assassin who started everything, and was given ‘the sentence’ – condemned to be cryogenically frozen, a workaround for a society that has abolished the death penalty. People are kept alive for as long as the technology allows, in case new evidence comes to light. After a set period, the freezing will be terminated. And that period is – of course – a hundred years. Nila has a week to prove the assassin was wrongly convicted, at the same time as the constitution’s clock is ticking, and the state’s fragile peace may break. In a really interesting, thoughtful way. Rather than spoon-feed us terrifying outcomes – “If this side wins, this terrible thing will happen” – Bhatia builds a world where the characters cannot know the outcomes of their actions. This starts with musings on the proper role of the Guardians – can they really be impartial, and does that excuse them from responsibility? – but expands as Nila grapples with the political implications of her case. It makes for a really interesting tension. As you watch her desperate hard work, you can’t help wanting her to win, but you aren’t totally sure whether she’s being played or exactly what winning would entail. Yes, and a public commentator on civil and constitutional rights in India. He uses his expertise in all the right ways – there’s a satisfying sense that the Guardians are going about their work in properly lawyerly ways, without us getting bogged down in legal technicalities."