Summary

In “Between Heartbeats,” the novel shifts back in time to tell the story of Anil’s first meeting with Leaf Niedecker, an American woman and forensic scientist like her. They were both assigned to work in the Arizona labs. Leaf loved movies and they would often carry her television into the yard behind Leaf’s house and watch movies together. Anil remembers watching Red River and theorizing together over the final fight in the movie between the actors Montgomery Clift and John Wayne. They debate where the bullet seemed to have struck John Wayne’s character, and jokingly make plans to create a book about forensic doctors analyzing movie scenes. They particularly worry over the movie Point Blank, and they wonder where on the torso Lee Marvin was shot so that he was still able to stagger through the prison and swim in...