Wednesday, August 17, 2016

A New Anita Ray: When Krishna Calls

In her fourth outing, WhenKrishna Calls, Anita Ray, an Indian-American photographer, is faced with the loss of her beloved Hotel Delite and the ruin of her dear Auntie Meena. Her aunt may be something of a ditz, but she has a huge heart of caring and compassion, and Anita adores her.

The God Krishna, the handsome deity who plays the flute and draws his devotees to him in love and adoration, watches over this story of the extremes we will go to protect our family and those we love.

When Anita discovers the young daughter of a part-time employee hiding in the hotel compound, she knows something has gone wrong in Nisha’s life. Then the police arrive intending to question her in the violent death of her husband. Add to this Auntie Meena’s bizarre reactions and Anita knows something more is going on here.

Anita faces another challenge at the same time. The owner of a prestigious art gallery has offered her the chance for a rare, one-woman exhibit of her photographs, and Anita knows that this could make or break her career. It’s one thing to sell photographs to tourists in a small shop on the beach and quite another to present them to the glitterati who know and buy art. The city of Trivandrum is no longer the quiet backwater it was thirty years ago. It has grown into an important destination for Indians and foreigners alike. This is the audience Anita can now reach—if she can just get her work done on time and into the owner’s hands. It seems that every time she heads to the gallery she is tripped up by circumstances.

Nothing is going right, and when she learns what Auntie Meena has been up to, Anita is brought almost to the point of despair. Almost.

If you enjoy this visit with Anita and Auntie Meena, take a look at the three earlier mysteries.


 



5 comments:

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  2. Congratulations, Susan. This is the review I posted to Goodreads. I'll post it on Amazon as soon as they will let me:
    This is the second of Susan Oleksiw's Anita Ray mysteries that I've read and these books are hard to put down once you get started. Set in India, Anita Ray is a half-American, half-Indian photographer who lives in the charming Hotel Delite run by her Auntie Meena. Anita has a habit of getting into the middle of situations and then just cannot let go until she figures it out.

    Reading these books is transporting because the rhythm of language, the food, the clothing, the way people interact is far different from what most of us are accustomed to. Since Oleksiw has lived in India and spends part of her year there, I trust she knows her characters and their personalities. I sometimes wish there was a small glossary to help with some of the terms but that does not at all detract from the story.

    In When Krishna Calls, Anita discovers a little girl who has apparently been abandoned in the hotel's courtyard (with a goat) and she thinks she knows who the girl's mother might be. As she sets out to find her she learns that the girl's father was recently murdered and Anita begins to fear for the mother's life. She is drawn deeper and deeper into a dark world of money-lending and rival criminals. An "accident" in which her car is hit brings an extremely attractive stranger into the mix.

    I have to say, Anita is one plucky lady! She's not afraid to walk right into danger and give it a piece of her mind. The plot is solid, the characters are intriguing, and the entire book takes you out of wherever you are and lands you in southern India with a very persistent and determined heroine.

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  3. Thanks for the review, Kathleen. I'm so glad you enjoy the Anita Ray stories.

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  4. Good luck & God's blessings on your new release, Susan!
    PamT

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  5. Thanks, Pam. I appreciate your support.

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