It's 1885. Off the coast of Africa, where the slave ships ply, lies the island of Arlinda. Here a black baby boy and a white baby girl are being raised by a mute nurse, as an experiment in race studies. Arlinda is an interesting setting: islands lend themselves well to powerful denouements or at the least to idyllic romances, as anyone who has read Golding's The Lord of the Flies or seen The Blue Lagoon will testify. Add to this the extra dimension of genetic theory, and you could, with artful plot and perspective, have a provocative piece of Frankenstein meets Never Let Me Go...

TOP 10 BEST SELLERS A monthly national list of bestselling books compiled for India Today by ORG-MARG based on data from 15 retail outlets in six cities. FICTION NO. TITLE AUTHOR PUBLISHER

1. (2) One Night@the Call Centre Chetan Bhagat Rupa 2. (1) Shantaram Gregory David Roberts Penguin 3. (4) False Impression Jeffrey Archer Pan Books 4. (3) Memoirs of a Geisha Arthur Golden Random House 5. (6) The Triumph of The Sun Wilber Smith Macmillan NON-FICTION NO. TITLE AUTHOR PUBLISHER 1. (1) Freakonomics Steven D. Levitt Penguin 2. (10) Identity and Violence Amartya Sen Allan Lane 3. (4) The Argumentative Indian Amartya Sen Penguin 4. (6) Two Lives Vikram Seth Penguin 5. (5) The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari Robin S. Sharma Jaico Books OTHER INDIAN BOOKS IN THE TOP 20 FICTION NO. TITLE AUTHOR PUBLISHER 7.(5) Five Point Someone: What Not To Do At IIT Chetan Bhagat Rupa 9. (-) God's Little Soldier Kiran Nagarkar Harper Collins 11. (8) Weight Loss Upamanyu Chatterjee Penguin NON-FICTION NO. TITLE AUTHOR PUBLISHER 6. (-) The Greatness Guide Robin S. Sharma Jaico 7. (7) Being Indian Pavan K. Varma Viking 13. (-) Code Name God Mani Bhaumik Penguin 14. (13) Maximum City: Bombay Lost & Found Suketu Mehta Penguin Last month's rating in brackets Participating bookshops: Delhi: Om Book Shop, Faqir Chand, Teksons, Full Circle; Mumbai: Crossword, Shah Book Stall, Danai Book Shop; Bangalore: Fountainhead, Gangarams; Hyderabad: Walden Book Link, The Book Point; Kolkata: Oxford Books, Modern Book Depot, Family Book Shop; Chennai: Fountainhead

This is Basu's new novel after The Opium Clerk and The Miniaturist. Two warring scientists in this novel add depth to this varied repertoire. Bates, the Englishman, collects skulls in an office referred to, appropriately enough, as the Madhouse. According to him, the white race is superior to the black and skull measurements confirm this hypothesis. Belacroix, the Frenchman, is less defined. He is subject to a basketful of weird skin conditions, but mostly he takes notes and engages Bates in pages of pseudo-scientific argument. His thesis remains that the races are different but doomed to hate each other. The Arlinda experiment is the statistically half-baked consequence of this disagreement. The white girl will emerge superior, says Bates. They will fight and one will kill the other, says Belacroix. They circle each other, like gladiators in a ring, for most of the book, which sounds suspenseful, except that nothing happens. It's all dependably dull. Bates, Belacroix, Norah and specially the children never come to life. The denouement isn't overly dramatic either, but it comes as a relief all the same.