{"id":3846,"date":"2020-10-31T03:48:23","date_gmt":"2020-10-31T10:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=3846"},"modified":"2020-10-31T03:48:23","modified_gmt":"2020-10-31T10:48:23","slug":"nev-march-murder-in-old-bombay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/nev-march-murder-in-old-bombay\/","title":{"rendered":"Nev March: Murder in Old Bombay"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This novel will be published November 10, 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n

This charming novel is the righteous winner of the Minotaur\/MWA First Crime novel prize.\u00a0 Set in 1892 Bombay during the British Raj, this novel focuses on Captain Jim Agnihotri, who has left the military after a long stint in the hospital.\u00a0 The book has an excellent opening line: \u201cI turned thirty in hospital\u2026with little to read but newspapers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In said newspapers, Captain Jim reads the story of two Parsee women who plunged to their deaths from a University clock tower.\u00a0 One was a young bride, one, her younger sister in law.\u00a0 When Jim reads a plea in letter form in the newspaper from the young widower, he is sure that the details of the crime don\u2019t add up.\u00a0 The husband pleads that this was not a suicide but the recently concluded trial leaves this stain and uncertainty on the family.<\/p>\n

Jim is also a recent devotee of Sherlock Holmes, and feels his hero could have solved this crime with a more thorough vetting of both clues and circumstance.\u00a0 Thus resolved, when he is released from the hospital, he acquires a job at the newspaper, with his first assignment to interview the bereaved Framji family.\u00a0 He is quickly hired by the Framjis as their own investigator into the crime, and ultimately almost adopted by these loving, grieving people.\u00a0 Complication:\u00a0 he falls, in a big way, for the Framji daughter, Diana, recently returned from boarding school in England.<\/p>\n

This has a very traditional set up \u2013 obviously, it\u2019s based on Sherlock Holmes \u2013 but for this talented writer, Holmes is more of a jumping off point for a beautifully told, exciting, adventure\/romance with a well crafted mystery at its center.\u00a0 The author also fleshes out the personalities of the two dead women and makes clear the hole they\u2019ve left behind in their family.<\/p>\n

Jim is suffering from what we now would call PTSD and it informs his character.\u00a0 He\u2019s a perfect mystery insider\/outsider: he\u2019s half English, half Indian (which prevents his entry into high society in some cases, as well as further advancement in the military) and he\u2019s also torn, as he was in the British Army and has contacts and friends within it.\u00a0 Indian nationalism was taking hold as a movement in 1892 and that\u2019s also a conundrum for Jim.<\/p>\n

Because he\u2019s not Parsee, because of the class difference between himself and the Framjis \u2013 who live a life of privilege \u2013 and because of some of his rougher experiences, as both a boxer and a soldier, he is set apart from the people and places he\u2019s investigating.\u00a0 In many ways, this gives him an edge.\u00a0 He sees events, and people, with fresh eyes.<\/p>\n

He dons disguises, takes a special and dangerous army commission, rides horses and travels the rails over India and as he does so, the author truly illuminates the time and place she\u2019s writing about.\u00a0 As inevitable romance blossoms between Jim and Diana, as I read, I had thought the author was a man, but I was puzzled.\u00a0 Some of the scenes are Lauren Willig level romantic, and when I finished, I discovered that this was in fact written by a woman.<\/p>\n

There are several things I truly loved about this wonderful book.\u00a0 I loved the unapologetic plunge into time and place.\u00a0 I loved the truly clever, slowly unfolding mystery.\u00a0 In deference to Holmes there are some excellent disguises on Jim\u2019s part as well as some very tiny clues \u2013 like a bead \u2013 that turn out to be relevant.\u00a0 And I loved the characters of both Jim and Diana.\u00a0 Jim is actually much more deeply conventional than she is, and their discovery of one another is fascinating.\u00a0 I absolutely cannot wait for book two.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This novel will be published November 10, 2020. This charming novel is the righteous winner of the Minotaur\/MWA First Crime novel prize.\u00a0 Set in 1892 Bombay during the British Raj, this novel focuses on Captain Jim Agnihotri, who has left the military after a long stint in the hospital.\u00a0 The book has an excellent opening … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10,451,100,449,448,450],"class_list":["post-3846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-historical","tag-india-1890s","tag-minotaur-books","tag-murder-in-old-bombay","tag-nev-march","tag-sherlock-holmes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3846"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3848,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846\/revisions\/3848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}