Murder Under a Red Moon

Starred review from January 23, 2023
Set in 1921 Bangalore, Nagendra’s superb sequel to 2022’s The Bangalore Detectives Club plunges amateur sleuth Kaveri Murthy, a student of mathematics and admirer of Sherlock Holmes, into a case involving the family of her physician husband, Ramu. Kaveri’s mother-in-law, Bhargavi, beseeches her to use her skills to help a cousin of Bhargavi’s, Shanthi Sharma. Shanthi’s husband’s factory, Sampangi Mills, is facing unexpected financial problems, and Shanthi suspects her daughter’s fiancé of embezzling from the business. Kaveri reluctantly agrees to review the accounts to see if she can validate Shanthi’s suspicion, only to wind up probing the shooting murder of a person connected with Sampangi Mills, on whose corpse is mysteriously found Kaveri’s magnifying glass chain that went missing earlier. Ramu assists in the digging, along with a motley group of allies, including a Muslim policeman’s wife. Assured pacing matches equally assured prose, and Nagendra brings the political tensions of India’s colonial period to life without overwhelming the crafty whodunit plot. Fans of Abir Mukherjee’s Wyndham and Banerjee novels will find much to like. Agent: Priya Doraswamy, Lotus Literary.