I would like to thank the author for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Westland Books

Published – Out Now

Price – Currently only available in India via https://www.amazon.in/Sentence-Gautam-Bhatia/dp/9360451525

What if you’ve been frozen in stasis for a hundred years for a crime you may or may not have committed?

An impoverished young man, Jagat, is found guilty of murder. For his crime, he is sentenced to the highest form of punishment—the sleep of death for a century, with the promise of revival should his innocence ever be proven.

But his act sparks violence in the great city of Peruma, with the Commune, an anarchist collective of workers, revolting against the Council, which has ruled Peruma for four hundred years. Drained by endless conflict, Council and Commune negotiate a hundred-year treaty that is to be enforced by an impartial body: the guardians of the Confederation.

And now, a century later, the Charter is a week away from lapsing. Tensions run high in Peruma. As an uncertain future looms, Nila, a young guardian, is approached by a mysterious woman who insists that Jagat’s case be reopened before it’s too late. Drawn by the prospect of undoing a possible historical injustice, Nila agrees. But as she begins to unearth the past, forces, known and unknown, thwart her at every turn.

What secrets does the city hold? Who is working in the shadows against her—and why? What is the price of resurrecting a martyr? The Sentence raises questions about justice, rights and ethics that will echo in your mind long after you’ve turned the last page.

‘There may be a time, Guardian, when it doesn’t matter whether our peace is founded on the truth or a lie. All that matters is that there is peace.’

“Hello, My Name is Inigo Montoya, You Killed My Father Prepare To Die” as well as very quotable this line in The Princess Bride is an example of showing how you raise the stakes. You create a character over the length of the film, you know their backstory and then with this line you enter a fight to the death – we know this matters. Its not the fate of the world but a son avenging their beloved father we are invested in. We don’t really know Middle Earth for long (who cares about the appendices) to care what Sauron does to it we do care about all the characters we meet along the way and want them to survive. We may tell people the world is ending, democracy is at stake but unless they can really feel it and see its probably too big a concept to grasp. In Gautam Bhatia’s remarkable SF legal thriller The Sentence we have the fate of a divided powerful city at stake but the real focus on one man’s life makes us as readers hugely invested in a captivating and thought providing read I suspect will linger in your minds long after reading it.

The great city of Peluma a hundred years ago was on a knife edge. On one side High Town – the wealthy, the business owners and the elite families. On the other Low Town the workers and increasingly groups run along the lines of anarchism. A dispute over wealth distribution and strikes had raised tensions to the edge of conflict when a respected politician Director Purul went to negotiate and after a bomb attack was then shot dead. The assassin Jagat was arrested and put on trial sentenced to the sleep of death – suspended animation and afterwards Peluma went into civil war. The only solution to prevent destruction was a hundred-year collective agreement between the powers now known as Council and Commune working in a joint confederation where a legal framework covers everything and allows neither side the upper hand. To ensure this happens both sides agreed to the Guardians – effectively lawyers from both sides swore an oath to remove all their family and political alliances and deliver strict neutral justice. But the framework’s end is approaching and a legal case from both sides will decide the future of the city and its two uneasy sides.

Nila is one of the brightest young Guardians with a known fierce reputation for ensuring justice happens no matter the cost. Surprisingly she is overlooked for the case to decide the city’s future, but she is very soon after hired on a unique criminal case – an appeal to lift Jagat’s sentence before he actually does pass away as the suspended amination can’t hold off death forever. Nila is appealing a man viewed as a terrorist on one side and a martyr on the other. The city is once again on edge and Nila’s findings could change the mood and outcomes for millions.

What I love about The Sentence is the sense of immersion that Bhatia creates from following Director Purul’s final moments to a hundred-year time jump we quickly get to understand this city, its power bases and tensions and how the Guardian system tries to keep it all going. While this can speak to human history (and Bhatia’s notes at the end are a treat for history fans to confirm certain easter eggs) my feeling is Peluma is something that stands on its own two feet and not just pure allegory. It’s a city where two equal sides exist in the same space, and I think many of us can all see how difficult that is to help create a hopeful future. As its not our world or city I hugely respect that rather than big legal case on the future of  treaty, which some may find a little dry, we instead have just at the heart a focus of a connected tale but one where a single life hangs in the balance but its own outcome could affect the wider world – that’s the stake that the reader grabs onto and becomes the hook to making us care about the wider world in the process.

Nila is a fantastic lead character. Smart, ambitious, lover of fan fiction and takes the idea of justice no matter the cost as an ideal she must live up to. We soon get the sense that this has ruffled feathers, and the ‘neutral’ Confederation may have nudged her out of the way, so we feel invested that Nila gets a chance to show what she is capable of and perhaps tweak some noses back in the return. The story then turns almost into a legal thriller with a 7-day deadline to find clues, witnesses and evidence that can create an argument before a potentially innocent man is killed. It’s a Death Row tale with shades of political thriller but as we have SF we get suspended animation, skimmers flying through skies, truth serums and the added feeling of societal tensions rising. We regularly get news clipping from the media highlighting all the biassed perspective. For Nila a woman from the Commune she also treads a balance between her dedicated neutrality and knowing her family and former lover deeply want her to find for them; and if she loses the man the Revolution was started for will finally be dead too. But if anyone in the Council or Confederation thinks she is acting out of such loyalty she will be exiled and removed from office. It keeps us feeling the tension again as we know there are people willing to do this, but we don’t know who or why just yet. We watch Nila push herself into danger and with the help of her acerbic, witty and kind friend Maru we watch them play strategies, debate the case, explore the evidence, play tricks on those in power and push everything to get to the truth.

All of this is compelling, and Bhatia runs at pace so although we are in a world of legal arguments and strategy the added unfair tricks of the world Nila must navigate keep us on our toes. We sense danger and threats we are just unsure who as there are many powers here at work. This leads to the story’s remarkable final acts. We find out the truth and must now ask what is the right thing to do? Slowly themes of justice versus the neutrality of law and moral pragmatism are debated and then finally we get the actual non-theoretical dilemma for Nila but also impressively the reader. Bhatia invests you so much in the stakes and now Nila alone has the fate of it all on her shoulders. There is a beautiful chapter pause and that make the reader consider what would you do? We turn the page and find Nila’s solution and then we come away thinking was that the right thing to do? There are always going to be costs are we willing to take them. There are no easy answers here but it’s a beautiful capstone to the pyramid of arguments and themes that were explored when suddenly we see where the story was always going to take us. No epic land battles, no starships fighting in the skies but instead the power of words, arguments and ultimately human morality. That can with skill just be as enthralling a sit is certainly the case in this novel

In a world that often just goes for short term easy solutions where people are out for number one and not caring about the consequences of their decisions for others this a story that reminds us about justice, consequences and that ultimately, we should take responsibility for doing the right thing. How we conclude what the right thing to do is though, well that is never going to be easy and can require a leap of faith, but having a moral centre may help rather than pure selfishness. We dust ourselves off and don’t give up or give in. In an uneasy week this book has reminded us that we can always do better. It is strongly recommended and U.K. publishers should hurry and snap this up.