I had the privilege of interviewing Harini for the Read Like a Writer Podcast recently and her interview will be available to listeners in March, in anticipation of her new book, the second in the Bangalore Detective Club series.
I listened to her debut novel on Audible and found it great fun. It is a well plotted cozy mystery, set in 1920s India and besides solving a murder her heroine is also battling race and gender inequity. I do love a Christie style mystery and Nagendra does not disappoint here. Kaveri, our amateur sleuth, is a woman of education, somewhat a rarity, who also benefits from a loving arranged marriage to Ramu, a local doctor. They are newlyweds, sort of, having recently officially begun their marriage, though it was arranged previously and they were already technically married.
At a fancy dress party, the first victim falls and the chase begins. Kaveri decides she must do all she can to clear the name of a woman of ill-repute who is being blamed and shamed, so she puts her mathematically logical mind to the task, with the help of an older woman who serves as her mentor and is also teaching her how to cook.
It is a fabulous ride through a time and place that Nagendra brings alive on the page for readers. I am already looking forward to the next book!
PS—there are recipes in the back of the book. Yay!