Harini Nagendra's engaging first mystery in a projected series, The Bangalore Detectives Club, introduces a whip-smart, charming sleuth and provides a glimpse into intercultural relations in 1920s India. Kaveri Murthy, a newlywed and budding mathematician, is adjusting to her married life in Bangalore when a man is murdered at a dinner Kaveri is attending with her husband, a doctor named Ramu. Shocked and also intrigued, especially because the dead man has an unsavory connection to their milkman, Kaveri begins investigating the murder. She is able to offer some useful insight, despite her husband's protests. Even when several other attacks follow, Kaveri continues to follow the trail, with the help of her elderly neighbor.
Nagendra (Nature in the City) portrays a vivid Bangalore through Kaveri's eyes. Quick and perceptive, she is a shrewd observer of the people she meets and the different social classes she encounters. Readers get a taste of India's rigid caste system as well as the practices of British colonial officers and their wives. Ramu and Kaveri make an intriguingly progressive couple: both of them are more interested in living their own way than in following outdated rules, but they must observe certain protocols for the comfort of their colleagues and neighbors. (Ramu is forced to confront his own long-held prejudices when Kaveri befriends a prostitute who is a suspect in the case.) The danger ramps up as Kaveri gets closer to solving the murder, but the narrative wraps up satisfyingly without excessive gore. Both Nagendra's amateur sleuth and her new series are insightful and promising. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams