But this is not the Goa that Zimler is writing about, mind you. So don't get out our suntan lotion or pack that bikini. In fact, dress for wintry cold. And leave your Portugese e-translator at home, please.

The main characters are the first-person narrator Ti (short for Tiago) and his sister Sofia, and their father. The three of them live simple, idyllic lives on a plantation just on the outskirts of the colony of Goa, hewing to their Portugese-Goan faith, while dabbling freely in the Hindu festivals and rituals of their friends, neighbours—and later, lovers. On one hand, it's a more or less typical coming-of-age story about adolescent lust and love, youthful adventures and friendships, and the warm yet sadness-tinged relationship between father and son. The prose is simple and the narrative pleasant without any overly dramatic highs or lows, and there's a great emphasis on emotional states and sometimes oddly nuanced feelings that a Freudian psychiatrist could probably have a field day interpreting.

But then comes the event that turns this deceptively simple historical family saga into something more sinister: Due to the daughter's liaision with an outsider, first the father, then the son, are arrested and imprisoned by the Inquisition. And then begins a tale of torture and suffering, misery and betrayal that would make the Count of Monte Cristo cringe (but without the adventure and high drama of Dumas's classic). The Catholic priests who have been 'informed' of the heresy committed by the Zarcos in intermingling with their Hindu friends—and by simply being Jewish to begin with—are painted as utterly evil sadists, with only a few human characteristics.

And the Catholic priest at the helm of this campaign of torture and ethnic cleansing of sorts is alllegedly none other than Francis Xavier, who was later sainted largely for his achievements during this very campaign and occupies an iconic position in modern India as well, with any number of schools, colleges, other instituitions named after him, and his saintly stature beyond reproach. As my mother was a Catholic, an Anglo-Indian no less, with roots in Goa (and, to be fair, Dutch-Irish-Scots stock as well), I've visited the basilica of St. Francis myself, and even seen his still recognizable body, preserved in a condition that is considered a miracle of faith. Even though I'm not a Catholic myself, I still have enough veneration for this iconic figure to bristle at the thought of him being made out to be some kind of Indian Torquemado of the Inquisition!

In a short but impassioned Afterword, author Zimler sets forth his outrage and shock at researching this period of Portugese-Jewish history (and Indian history too, of course) and learning of the "tens of thousands" of innocent Hindus and Jews who were tortured and slaughtered by the "fanatical" priest Xavier. And he even dedicates the book itself "To the many thousands of men, women, and children who were imprisoned by the Inquisition in India."