The book has great historical value as an authentic and well-researched field study of areas which were considered out of reach of the general reader and the resident of the city of pre-Partition Kolkata. The mystery element in this book is a very strong and appealing one.The author dared to go on secret nocturnal visits to certain dubious localities in the city of Kolkata in the early decades of the last century.

Author Hemendra Kumar Roy was a well-known writer of popular detective novels of his times and his inimitable style of prose grips the reader’s attention. Nothing is lost in translation. Translator, Rajat Chaudhuri is the author of Hotel Calcutta, Amber Dusk and the Bengali short story collection Calculus. He writings has won him a Charles Wallace Creative Writing Fellowship, UK, a Hawthornden Castle Fellowship, Scotland, a Korean Arts Council-InKo Residency in South Korea, and a Sangam House residency. He has written for Outlook magazine, American Book Review, Asian Review of Books, The Telegraph, Eclectica, among others.