Pakistan author Sabyn Javeri has always been fascinated by women leaders, not only political but from across all spheres, and her debut novel is a dark noir-meets-pacy courtroom drama that unravels the mystery of a Benazir Bhutto-like assassination.
"Nobody Killed Her" is a tale of intense friendship between two ambitious women - Prime Minister Rani Shah's and her close confidante Nazneen Khan or Nazo Khan - and unfolds in a country steeped in fanaticism and patriarchy.
Set against a backdrop of intrigue and political machinations, the novel, published by HarperCollins India, is about love, loyalty, obsession and deception.
"People describe it as a political thriller but I would term it as feminist fiction," says Javeri.
Though the novel talks of an assassination of a prime minister, the author says no character is inspired by any real-life person.
"The only part that it is inspired is the fact that there is an assassination," she asserts.
Javeri had a deep interest in women leaders - how they came to power and held on to power.
"I was interested in female leadership not just in politics but other fields as well. We had women leaders like Benazir Bhutto, Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher and on the other, we had also those like Leila Khaled and 'bandit queen' Phoolan Devi.
"It was really interesting to see what they had in common. All these women were in powerful positions but these were different kinds of powerful positions, very different from their usual roles," Javeri told PTI in an interview.
On the characters in her novel she says they are real only in the sense that they are flawed.
"They are not perfect. To base it on one person would be very boring. I think what makes it interesting is that I have looked at lots of different elements that people have in common. Like Indira Gandhi's transition from being the daughter of an idealist leader to someone desperate to hold on to power.
"I was interested in Margaret Thatcher, how when she rises in power, she thinks she is the queen. Her mannerism changed, she started dressing like the queen, speaking like the queen," she says.
Javeri, who lives between London and Karachi, also says she was interested in Benazir's unapologetic manner about having children.
"She is perhaps the only prime minister who had children during office. I took a little bit from everyone's life and used my imagination for my book."
Javeri adopts a slightly different style of writing. Each chapter has two parts - one a very brief account of the court heating which is basically hard facts and the other an interpretation by Nazo Khan of what had happened and what it looks like
"I wanted to experiment with these two narratives - the lawyer's statement and Nazo Khan's narrative," she says.
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