India, June 2 -- In the India of the 1980s, the silicon metal controversy has erupted, and the newly appointed Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, has to make a tough choice. Import silicon or back indigenous technology, a cause he championed.

Based on true events, Ramjee Chandran's debut novel takes readers on a roller coaster ride.

A chance meeting of two professors from the prestigious Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, G Suryan and Vasudeva Murthy, with the general manager of Mettur Chemicals, RV Ramani, in 1963 sets off a chain of events which ends up intriguing the Russians, the Americans and the French - and, in turn, India's intelligence agencies.

Suryan and Murthy take a bumpy bus ride to Mettur dam in Tamil Nadu to get a kil...