Publisher's Synopsis
On 1 June 2001 the heir to the Napalese throne, Crown Prince Dipendra, donned military fatigues, armed himself with four guns and walked in on a quiet family gathering. Without speaking, he mowed his family down before turning the pistol on himself. But Dipendra did not die, and while lying in a coma was declared king. He was now a living god. Sharing the world's fascination with the crime and captivated by the kind of society that could create such a situation, award-winning writers Amy Willesee and Mark Whittaker set out to investigate. Exploring Kathmandu and other parts of the kingdom, they conducted exhaustive interviews with everyone from Maoist guerillas to members and friends of the royal family, gaining startling insights into the people involved in, and the events behind, the massacre. At the heart of the story is the love affair between Dipendra and the beautiful aristocrat, Devyani Rana, who he was forbidden to marry. Revealing a country where the twenty-first century mingles uneasily with the fourteenth, Love & Death in Kathmandu is both a stunningly evocative travel book and the riveting investigation of an incredible crime.
