Nagendra (Cities and Canopies: Trees in Indian Cities) makes her fiction debut with an exceptional series launch. In 1921, 19-year-old Kaveri Murthy, who has a passion for advanced mathematics, lives just outside the sprawling city of Bangalore. While Kaveri and her physician husband, Ramu, are attending a reception at the prestigious Century Club, the body of a pimp is found murdered in the garden. When the deputy inspector of the local police force arrives to investigate, Kaveri confides that she saw the dead man in the garden with his hands around the throat of a beautiful woman. Kaveri's desire to see justice done takes her from the bastions of British wealth to humble mud-floored shacks. By placing her intelligent and clear-eyed protagonists in the multilayered and multicultural milieu of colonial India, Nagendra, a university professor in Bangalore, imbues this mystery with a rich, edifying, and authentic feel. She rounds out the volume with easy-to-follow recipes for dishes like spiced rice with lentils, a welcome change from the sugary fare that culinary cozy recipes typically offer. Readers will hope Kaveri and Ramu will be back soon. Agent: Priya Doraswamy, Lotus Literary. (May)

Set in colonial India in 1921, this debut mystery, the first in a projected series, makes full use of the oppressive British rule of the time, matched by the oppressive treatment of women, to highlight the ingenuity and bravery of a young woman determined to solve a murder. Kaveri is 19, recently married to a doctor, well-off but unhappy under the expectation that her life should be confined to childbearing and cooking. The murder of a beautiful woman at the Century Club (the historic venue that, since 1917, has been the province of prominent Indians), on a night that Kaveri and her husband attended a sumptuous dinner there, galvanizes her into investigative action. Kaveri, who loves mathematics and biology, uses her intelligence, charm, knowledge of the new science of fingerprints, and (often) luck in finding clues to pursue the case, aided by her husband's admiration and his contacts within the police. Nagendra's evocation of setting is riveting, and her use of colonial history is thoroughly fascinating, with devastating depictions of the airy condescension of the British. While McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series is an obvious parallel, Nagendra's novel also suggests the Nancy Drew mysteries, in which the intrepid, 18-year-old Nancy is helped by her attorney father. A fine start to a promising series.