{"id":7080,"date":"2026-07-09T05:28:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T12:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=7080"},"modified":"2026-07-09T05:28:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T12:28:30","slug":"mj-soni-the-masala-chai-mystery-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/mj-soni-the-masala-chai-mystery-club\/","title":{"rendered":"MJ Soni: The Masala Chai Mystery Club"},"content":{"rendered":"

Debut<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This charming first mystery may follow several trendy and now familiar tropes, but that didn\u2019t bother me in the least because the telling of the story and the characters in it are simply\u00a0 delightful.\u00a0 It\u2019s set in an upscale condo development where the main character, the recently retired and widowed librarian Neeti Shah, lives with her niece Myra and her adorable great nephew, Ved.\u00a0 The story begins when Neeti hears a scream across the road and hurries over to find her neighbor dead at the foot of his stairs, seemingly killed by a fall, but, surprise, Neeti is not convinced.<\/p>\n

The body was discovered by the man\u2019s wife, who is soon joined by a local doctor, the pair of them rushing to order that not only must the victim be cremated as soon as possible, but his beloved dog Yolo has to be put down.\u00a0 Horrified at that prospect, Neeti quickly takes the animal in, mourning the death of her neighbor, while still being well aware that the brash and unpleasant fellow wasn\u2019t much liked in the community.<\/p>\n

To the delight of Ved, she heads back home with her new pet, where she quickly assembles a group of neighbors who dub themselves \u201cThe Masala Chai Mystery Club,\u201d dedicated to gathering information about their local crime, with the aim of ultimately solving it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all a bit reminiscent of the Marlowe murder club as well as other recent books by Michelle Cullen, Freya Sampson, and Fergus Craig, but it\u2019s no less appealing here, a big reason being the characters. Neeti herself is a charmer, making her chai tea and wearing lovely sarees which she lovingly describes for the reader.\u00a0 Usually she and her niece get along fine though some tension eventually develops between them, with the contrast between Neeti trying to find a place for herself after retirement and widowhood, and Myra trying to find a similar niche as a young single mom becoming a powerful and resonant theme. It\u2019s almost like a romance with a breakup coming halfway through the narrative, because\u00a0 you know these two will work it out eventually, the question being not if they will but how.<\/p>\n

The other stand out characters are neighbor Peggy and her Shakespeare quoting husband, who, though diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s, always seems to come up with an apt quotation for every occasion, as well as Thandi, a woman from South Africa who fears the police. Much like Osman\u2019s Thursday Murder Club books, a female cop is drawn into the proceedings despite her better instincts when, unlike her blowhard lead boss, she concludes that a murder has indeed been committed.<\/p>\n

Neeti and the dead man also have a previous backstory, one that makes her appreciate him despite all his unpleasant quirks, its eventual revelation proving both moving and unexpected.\u00a0 The mystery part of the story is similarly well handled, with the quite suspenseful parts of the story leading to a satisfyingly brisk pace.\u00a0 Soni brilliantly introduces her story with a reference to Christie\u2019s Dumb Witness, <\/em>and the trail of clues pursued by the team are classically clever and well laid out, with even the dog playing a vital part in the proceedings.\u00a0 All this and more have allowed Soni to produce this truly enjoyable and well written debut.\u00a0\u00a0— Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Debut This charming first mystery may follow several trendy and now familiar tropes, but that didn\u2019t bother me in the least because the telling of the story and the characters in it are simply\u00a0 delightful.\u00a0 It\u2019s set in an upscale condo development where the main character, the recently retired and widowed librarian Neeti Shah, lives … 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":[2498,328,98,2519,906,1276,2520],"class_list":["post-7080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-amateur-sleuths","tag-cozy","tag-crooked-lane","tag-mj-soni","tag-retirement","tag-robin-agnew","tag-the-masala-chai-mystery-club"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7080","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=7080"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7131,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7080\/revisions\/7131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}