As a child, Nev March wanted to do everything her brother could — a chance to go out with her friends, for instance. Once she graduated to college, she finally began protesting. Her parents' answer was always no, and the explanation was often given in the form of, "Remember the Godrej girls." Over a phone call from New Jersey, March tells us, "It was a sort of code word to say that in good families, bad things also happen."

The Godrej girls her parents were referring to were Bachubai and Pherozebai Godrej who were found dead at the foot of the 280-ft Rajabai Clock Tower in 1891. Bachubai, 20, was the wife of industrialist Ardeshir Godrej, who co-founded the Godrej Group, and Pherozebai, 16, his sister. Having grown up in a Parsi household in Mazgaon in the '70s and '80s, March always thought that the case was fairly recent. It was only in 2016 when she stumbled upon an article on the Internet where she learnt of the over-a-century-old, unsolved case that caused a stir in the city, and Bombay's Parsi community, in its entirety. And that's also where the seed of her debut novel lay.