A crime novel that firmly dispenses with cliché to forge something darkly unique.
FT literary critic Barry Forshaw.

Summary-The Day I Died
Millions of tourists from around the world go to Goa every year to enjoy the fabulous beaches and multicultural mix of this former Indo-Portuguese colony. Some never return. This fast-paced thriller was inspired by real-life events that made sensational global headlines.
The teenage Ceri escapes from a small Welsh town to Goa to ‘find herself.’ Instead she finds herself being groomed by the Beachboys, who run the Sunset Lounge on Goa’s Anjuna Beach. Wanting to muscle in on the lucrative sex and drugs trade that mass tourism brings in its wake are the Ukes, a gang of displaced Russians from Kiev. While foreign tourists enjoy an intoxicated Hippie-style world of sex and sand, the Beachboys headed by Scorpio and the Ukes headed by Vlad fight for control of the turf. On the side-lines are the Banjara gypsies, a low-caste minority struggling for survival
Crossing gang lines, Ceri falls for Vlad’s son Igor, who is trying to distance himself from his criminal father. He woos Ceri with his poongi, a gypsy musical instrument. The Day I Died is a coming-of-age story in which Ceri and Igor must find their own identity. But as with Romeo and Juliet before them, the teenagers’ forbidden romance unleashes a spiral of murder and betrayal. With startling twists and turns, the action races to a shattering conclusion.