It gets its title from the Parsi Towers of Silence where the bodies of the dead are left to be picked clean by vultures.

Much of the novel is in the form of epistolary, including interviews and reports of conversations and research from the point of view of a narrator.

The novel begins with the story of Barbie Batchelor, a retired missionary schoolteacher, who finds a place as a paying guest with Mabel Layton, a member of the aristocracy of the English in India, at Rose Cottage in Pankot.

But they are consoled with the gossip of the momentous events: (1) Teddie's injury resulting from a stone being thrown at his car, (2) Susan's instinct to show obeisance to the Nawab, thus saving all from embarrassment at his being detained at the entrance, and (3) the appearance of Shalini Gupta Sen at the railway station when the couple are being seen off on their honeymoon and the scene she creates with her entreaties to Merrick which are later revealed to regard Hari Kumar's imprisonment.

While Sarah is in Calcutta visiting Merrick, who witnessed Teddie's death and was himself injured, Mabel Layton has a stroke and dies.

Susan is witness to the old lady's death and the shock drives her into premature labor.

Worried about the state of Mabel's soul, Barbie worms her way into the morgue at the hospital and thinks she sees the anguish of eternal torment on the face of her dead friend.

Remembering a fable about scorpions committing suicide when surrounded by fire told her by Barbie, Susan pours kerosene in a ring on the grass, puts her baby in the center and lights the fluid.

Mildred blames Barbie for planting the idea in her mind and returns the Apostle spoons through Clarissa.

Barbie, deeply hurt by the insult, decides to make a gift of silver to the 1st Pankot Rifles.

Undetected by the lovers, she flees from the bungalow, but is caught in the rainstorm and falls seriously ill, coming down with bronchopneumonia.

She gets a letter from Calcutta, offering her a position as a teacher in Dibrapur, the site of Edwina Crane's suicide.

While leaving Rose Cottage, Barbie is physically and mentally injured in an accident and ends up at a sanatorium in Ranpur.