She decides to attend the Feast of St Francis Xavier, the biggest Christian festival in Asia, where the saint’s body will be exposed to the masses. But there’s a bloodbath when St Francis’s holy corpse is decapitated. Ruby is rescued by a former nun who leads her into a labyrinth of corruption and danger. McCall’s storytelling has excellent pace, and her evocation of Goa, with its population of western beach-bums, is wonderfully vivid. Grave Secrets In Goa, by Kathleen McCaul Piatkus, 368pp; £7.99,