JUSTICE FOR ALL

For readers of Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda and Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and fans of Jhumpa Lahiri, comes the haunting and vivid debut novel from Reema Patel. This is Slumdog Millionaire meets The God of Small Things .

Rakhi is a twenty-three-year old former street child haunted by the grisly aftermath of a prank turned fatal. Guilt-ridden and fearful, she lives alone in a one-room hutment in a Mumbai slum, and works as an office girl at a crumbling NGO for renowned human rights lawyer, Gauri Verma.

The monotony of Rakhi's life breaks when Alex, an over-privileged and entitled new intern starts working at her office. Naive and disarming, Alex persuades Rakhi into a transaction that seems harmless, at first.
Against Rakhi's strongest instincts, class lines blur, friendships blossom, and everything she once knew to be true is set ablaze. Her quest to find redemption is a journey of self-discovery in which she learns harsh truths about trust, belonging, and ultimately, survival.

REEMA PATEL has a B.A. in Political Science and International Development Studies from McGill University, and a J.D. from the University of Windsor. After working in Mumbai's social justice sector on two separate occasions: first as an intern in a street childfocused NGO, and again after her first year of law school in a human rights law office, the idea for JUSTICE FOR ALL came to her. The second chapter of this novel won the 2013 Penguin Random House Student Award for Fiction at the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies. Reema has since worked with Shyam Selvadurai through Diaspora Dialogues. JUSTICE FOR ALL is her debut novel. Reema Patel is a lawyer who investigates government maladministration at the City of Toronto. Her work advances equity, fairness and accountability in the delivery of services to the public.