India, Nov. 1 -- The great Raja Vikramaditya is told by the tantric yogi Kshantisheela to bring him a corpse that is hanging on a shisham tree. This leads to a battle of wills between the raja and the vetala that has possessed the corpse. Every time the raja tries to haul the corpse to the tantric, the ghostly trickster begins to narrate a tale that he says will end with a riddle the raja must solve. Can the raja outmanoeuvre the vetala? Author Meena Arora Nayak brings to vivid life the ancient text of Vetala Panchavimshati in The Undead Ghoul and the Clever Raja. Drawing from multiple sources, including the versions of Shivadasa and Jambhaladatta, Somadeva's Kathasaritsagara, and Lallu Lal's Baital Pachisi, she weaves together the best elements of this extraordinary feat of the imagination. In all, there are 24 tales narrated by the vet- ala. The frame story is the twenty-fifth tale. This is a classic book of horror that transcends genre to probe life, love, sexuality, the vagaries of human nature, and death....