Hiran is born in 1857Â -- the year of the Mutiny and the year his father dies. Brought to Calcutta by his widowed mother, he has few talents apart from an uncanny ability to read a man's lies in his palm. When luck gets him a job at an auction house, Hiran finds himself embroiled in a mysterious trade and in the affairs of his nefarious superior, Mr. Jonathan Crabbe, and his opium-addicted wife.