Motives, Clues, and Alibis

Monita and Kate discuss a recently released debut novel by Nev March. Ms. March is a Parsee Zoroastrian and currently lives in New Jersey. She won the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America Award for Best First Crime Fiction. This book is set in nineteenth century India ruled primarily by Great Britain, The mystery is based on a true story of two young Parsee women falling off of a tower at the university. Ms. March turns that event into a exciting story with many locations, interesting characters and a forbidden romance. The podcasters give some added insight into their feelings about the story and ideas about making an adventure series starring the dashing Captain Jim.

In this episode, Monita and Kate discuss one of their favorite Sherlock Holmes' stories. It is a classic gothic mystery with all the elements that make it a classic: the stark English moors, brooding characters and a supernatural hound. It is truly Holmes at his finest, with Watson along for the scary ride. Its a perfect halloween read. The mystery mavens give this Arthur Conan Doyle story a rating of 5 out of 5 red herrings.

Monita and Kate discuss the latest mystery novel by Louise Penny. This is the 16th novel featuring Inspector Gamache of the Surete' du Quebec. This one is a bit different since most of it takes place in Paris instead the of the Canadian Province of Quebec. But don't worry because some of our favorite characters are back; most notably Armand Gamache's family, his godfather and of course Jean-Guy Beavoir. So just sit back and listen to the duo discuss this book!

In this episode Monita and Kate discuss the most famous of Dame Agatha Christie's mystery novels with the Belgian detective extraordinaire, Hercule Poirot. The murder takes place during a fateful train journey from Istanbul to London with numerous and disparate people. The alibis are tight, clues are limited, but of course Poirot solves the mystery quite elegantly. They compare and contrast the 2017 movie starring Kenneth Branagh with the original 1934 novel. Five Red Herrings (out of 5) for both the novel and movie!! You should see and read them both....

Monita and Kate will be discussing a relatively new mystery writer, Chetan Bhagat, in this week's episode. The Girl in Room 105 is about an amateur sleuth who is investigating his ex-girlfriend's murder in India. So you get to discover Indian culture, geography and follow the protagonist (Keshav) as he tries to find the culprit. We gave this first time effort a cumulative score of 3.75 Red Herrings (out of 5)!