Guardian of the Dawn — Richard Zimler

'powerful' Booklist

'riveting' Publishers Weekly

'[Zimler is] a master craftsman, and this book is Art… a riveting murder mystery… spectacular' India Today

After his Jewish family fled the Catholic Inquisition in Portugal, Tiago Zarco lives a tranquil existence in colonial India, enjoying secret sojourns with his sister into the heady festivities of the local Hindu culture while evading the ruling Portuguese authorities.

But as he comes of age in sixteenth-century Goa, Ti struggles to keep the far-reaching influence of the Inquisition from destroying his family and pulling him apart from the Hindu girl he loves. And when an act of betrayal sees his father imprisoned, he is forced to hunt down the traitor and make an unimaginable choice, triggering a harrowing journey that will show him the depths of human depravity and the poisonous salvation of revenge.

At once passionate, furious and hopeful, Guardian of the Dawn is both a saga of horrifying religious persecution and a riveting, tender multicultural love story.

'Richard Zimler's style is so limpid and encompassing that you begin to find your bearings in 16th-century Portuguese-occupied Goa faster than you may have thought possible.' The Guardian

'remarkable' Times Literary Supplement

'An exciting adventure story' The Independent