Wednesday, December 25, 2024
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
AUTHOR HARINI NAGENDRA'S LATEST HISTORICAL MYSTERY SET IN INDIA
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| image from Wikimedia Commons |
Harini Nagendra is a professor of ecology at Azim Premji University, and a well-known public speaker and writer on issues of nature and sustainability. The first book in her Bangalore Detectives Club series was a New York Times Notable Book of 2022, and shortlisted for the Agatha, Lefty, Anthony and Historical Dagger. Harini lives in Bangalore with her family, in a home filled with maps. She loves trees, mysteries, and traditional recipes. Learn more about her and her books at her website.
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| Image from Wikimedia Commons |
In my day job, I am an academic and university professor who conducts research on the ecology and history of Indian cities – and I come across many fascinating nuggets of information which I’d love to share with readers from different parts of the world. The Bangalore Detectives Club, my historical mystery series set in 1920s colonial India, was inspired by this desire to showcase the many, very interesting stories and anecdotes that needed to flourish outside the pages of scholarly academic literature. While I write non-fiction, too, it’s sometimes easiest to do this through a story.
Book 3 in the series, A Nest of Vipers, takes us into the world of jadoo—Indian street magic—with sleight-of-hand magicians and rope tricks which have fascinated me since I was a young child, growing up in Delhi in the 1970s, where it was common to see snake charmers, fortune tellers with parrots, and animal trainers with performing bears. Some of these forms of street magic have since been made illegal, especially the ones that involve caging and mistreating wild animals – and rightfully so. But others still survive to this day on the streets of India.
Jadoo had an uneasy relationship to western stage magic in the early 20th century. Indian street performers and circus artists made their way to Europe and America, and public interest in their performances began to attract the attention of Western magicians like Harry Houdini, who dressed in blackface at the Chicago World Fair in 1893 and pretended to be a Hindu Fakir.
Houdini may not have known, but he was following in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor Charles Dickens, who also stained his face and enacted the part of an Indian magician at children’s parties. Houdini’s biggest rival Howard Thurston travelled to India to learn the secrets of street magicians, which he then exploited on stage, but at the same time, denounced those that he learnt from, calling them charlatans and tricksters.
By 1922, when the Indian independence movement had spread across India, a few prominent circuses had begun to integrate acts that incorporated elements of anti-British sentiment, flirting with danger. The Bengali magician Das, who plays a key role in A Nest of Vipers, disappears in the middle of a dramatic performance, soon after making his distaste for the British Empire public on stage. His story was inspired by all the stories I read about Indian magicians, and by the nimble street acrobats I still see in Indian cities today, who are bold and imaginative, yet languish in obscurity - in contrast to their more successful Western counterparts.
A Bangalore Detectives Club Mystery, Book 3
Death stalks the streets of Bangalore when the Circus comes to town . . .
It's January 1922. The Bangalore Constabulary is on high alert as The Prince of Wales is scheduled to visit the city to redeem his reputation after disastrous visits marked by violent anti-British riots.
Kaveri has none of these concerns on her mind, not when she has just been given VIP tickets to the famous Bangalore circus. But when a celebrity magician, shackled in an iron cage filled with deadly snakes, disappears into thin air, she is stunned to discover her friend and favourite policeman, Inspector Ismail, is telling her to leave the case well alone.
After solving two murder cases, Kaveri Murthy thought she had cemented her reputation as Bangalore's favourite lady detective. But when death threats are left at her doorstep, former friends become foes, and the bodies start to pile up, Kaveri realises she has never been in this much danger…
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Wednesday, December 11, 2024
MYSTERY AUTHOR ERICA MINER SENDS HER SLEUTH CAREENING FROM MISADVENTURE TO MISADVENTURE
Erica Miner is a violinist turned award-winning author, screenwriter, journalist and lecturer. Learn more about her and her books at her website.
A Protagonist’s Journey from Misadventure to Misadventure
As an author of a series, I’m always thinking about how the next book can be totally different from the current one, yet continue seamlessly from where we left off. The main character is the crux of this issue, and in Book 3 of the series I put her in a situation that would challenge the most intrepid violinist-cum-sleuth.
In the first book of my Julia Kogan Opera Mystery series, Aria for Murder, the young protagonist, Julia, starts off as a starry-eyed neophyte violinist about to make her debut in the orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera, the most prestigious company in the world. She’s excited and thrilled. But she has no idea something terrible is about to happen, and before long she finds herself entangled in a murder investigation, with her life in peril.
Julia survives, and in Book 2, Prelude to Murder, Julia heads to Santa Fe to perform at the Opera. Here she finds further in-house violence, this time at an outdoor theatre set between two mysterious mountain ranges, where both ghosts and murder proliferate. Unable to resist becoming involved in an investigation, Julia ends up the target of a ruthless killer and is barely able to defend herself to save her own life and return to the Met.
Now, at the beginning of Book 3, Overture to Murder, five years have passed, during which Julia has managed to stay out of trouble. But San Francisco Opera calls on her in desperation: their concertmaster (first of the first violinists) has suffered serious injuries in a hit and run accident. Would she be able to replace him while he recovers?
Challenge is something Julia is drawn to like a wasp to a piece of prosciutto on the brunch table. She loves the violin, she loves opera, and she has fond memories of when her father showed her the delights of the City by the Bay, even though she was only five years old at the time. San Francisco
Opera is the second most prestigious company in the US, after the Met. Serving in the all-important position of concertmaster, even if only for the summer, would be a life changing experience, too good to pass up. The entire season would be focused on the monumental Ring of the Nibelungen, the masterful but fiendishly difficult four-opera cycle written by the 19th century German giant, Richard Wagner. Being a prominent orchestral leader for this astounding work would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, too good to pass up. There’s just one slight detail that might make her hesitate.
Her five-year-old daughter.
At the end of Prelude to Murder, Julia had been flabbergasted when she discovered she was pregnant. She never had considered having children, least of all at the age of 23. Her career was her primary focus, her obsession in almost every way.
But she cared deeply for Larry, her significant other, and figured it must have been her destiny to have his child, even if she was not quite ready to become a parent. When Rebecca was born, Julia was delighted to have a little girl—a “mini-me,” as Larry insisted on calling his daughter. He took to being a dad as if he had been born to it. Now if only Larry would stop bugging her about getting married, Julia thought, everything would be perfect.
Julia also loved San Francisco. Now Rebecca was the same age as Julia when her father had shown her the entrancing city, and Julia thought it the ideal age to do the same with Rebecca. She would be busy fulfilling her obligations at the opera, not to mention teaching violin to her rebellious five-year-old, but Larry would take up the slack. Surely Julia would find a bit of time here and there to join her family in availing themselves of the joys of the iconic landmarks of San Francisco. Julia gladly accepts the job offer, and she and her loved ones head west.
It turns out her job is not the only challenge that confronts Julia. Despite the expertise she has gained from six years of experience at the Met and Santa Fe, she is not prepared for the unexpected stress from a theatre with more than its share of detestable divas of both the male and female categories, irritable stage directors who have it in for her…and murder.
Once again, Julia succumbs to the lure of a brutal crime needing to be solved. In between the arduous rehearsals and tense performances in the theatre she follows her natural curiosity to the clues that are hidden in the recesses of the eerie basement with its ancient, dangerous looking equipment and the upper reaches of the theatre where, she is told, ghosts have been encountered.
As before, Julia’s sleuthing attracts the ire of a brutal killer. But she could not have anticipated the dreadful surprise that the perpetrator has in store.
A Julia Kogan Opera Mystery, Book 3
After jeopardizing her safety investigating killings at the Metropolitan Opera and Santa Fe Opera, intrepid violinist Julia heads to the San Francisco Opera to replace ailing concertmaster, Ben, who has suffered serious injuries in a hit and run accident. Julia suspects the mishap might not have been accidental, especially when a prominent company member becomes the victim of a grisly murder. As before, Julia cannot resist becoming involved in the investigation. Fiery artistic temperaments and danger lurking in the dark hallways and back stairways of an opera house with its own ghosts provide a chilling backdrop to Julia’s sleuthing. This time, however, it’s not only her own life that is in peril.
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Wednesday, December 4, 2024
MY AUTHOR'S HOLIDAY GIFT TO OUR READERS
‘Tis the season for holiday cheer, getting together with friends and family, festive parties, and exchanging gifts. I love this time of year because my author, Lois Winston, is too busy with holiday festivities to dream up new ways to torment me with assorted murder and mayhem. She says it’s her holiday gift to me.
But this year she’s also got a gift for all our blog readers.
Back in August, Lois attended the Killer Nashville Mystery Conference. One of the workshops she went to was about how to grow your newsletter subscribers list through Reader Magnets. Lois decided to give Reader Magnets a try.
What’s a Reader Magnet, you ask? It’s a freebie, usually a short story or novella, that readers receive as a thank-you for subscribing to an author’s newsletter. If you subscribe to Lois’s newsletter, you’ll receive a free e-copy of Mosaic Mayhem, one of the three Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini Mysteries that are connected to the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series (otherwise known as those books Lois writes about me.)
A reluctant Amateur sleuth, bumbling kidnappers, mistaken identity. What could go wrong?
So much for a romantic getaway...When cash-strapped mom and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack is offered an all-expense paid three-day trip to Barcelona, her only worries are whether her passport is still valid and arranging care for her semi-invalid mother-in-law during her absence. However, within hours of landing in Europe, she finds herself staring down the barrel of a gun and needing to convince a Spanish crime syndicate they’ve kidnapped the wrong person. Why do people on both sides of the Atlantic keep trying to kill this pear-shaped, middle-aged single mom, and magazine crafts editor?
Click here to join Lois’s newsletter and get your free copy of Mosaic Mayhem.
