Crossmatch

Winner of the Gratiaen Prize 2020
Winner of the State Literary Award 2021

When a poor young boy succumbs to his injuries in the ICU, no one considers it anything but the result of a tragic accident. No one, that is, but Lotus, an introverted daydreamer who is drifting into a career in medicine more by parental choice than her own.

As a chance witness to his final moments, she is unwittingly drawn into his case and soon finds herself both angry and upset trying to understand what really happened to him.

Why, for instance, did the boy dash recklessly across the road into the path of an oncoming vehicle? Why did he have a contact with the same name as hers on his phone? What was his link to the luxurious Lotus Hospital?

Her sense of justice aroused, she follows a trail that takes her through the hospitals, slums and mansions of Colombo, juggling all this within her gritty life as a medical student.

Carmel Miranda is a doctor by profession and voracious reader by hobby. Crossmatch, winner of the Gratiaen Prize for the year 2020, is her debut novel