On an old estate along a quiet river in South India, a family waits for the arrival of a granddaughter they haven't seen in quite a while. When she fails to appear, they begin to worry. Anita Ray arrives at her grandmother's house to comfort the family and try to figure out where her cousin has got to. While she is there, a maidservant falls into a trance and reports that Devi, the Great Goddess, is angry with the family, very angry. Even worse, the maidservant predicts that Surya, the granddaughter, will never arrive. When the family astrologer advises an exorcism to cure the maidservant, Anita becomes curious about the astrologer, his associates, and a number of family antiques that have gone missing. The Wrath of Shiva takes the reader into a little-known world in Kerala, South India, a place of sacred groves and gods who guard them, of devotees who face divine possession and exorcists who would cure them, of treasures that lie scattered across the Indian landscape and those who would claim them.