The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh

Leaping backward in time, we join Murugan in Calcutta in 1995, as he follows the twisted threads of science, counter-science and ritual back a hundred years further to the laboratory of Ronald Ross, the British scientist who discovered how malaria is transmitted to humans. Obsessed with the weird, fortuitous coincidences that led to Ross' groundbreaking discovery, Murugan has stumbled upon evidence of an impossible ongoing experiment in controlled destiny, protected by a powerful unseen society that moves the world in secret and in silence.

Suddenly, every fact hitherto known can no longer be trusted, for everything has been revealed to be other than it appears. In this steamy, overcrowded city of clashing cultures and hidden faces, L. Murugan has opened a Pandora's Box that carefully orchestrated death and misdirection have long kept shut. And the truth that is revealed will have momentous con sequences--for Murugan, for Antar, for a troubled female journalist and an exquisite Indian celebrity...for everyone and everything human.