I am thrilled to introduce Gigi Pandian as today’s featured author. Gigi is a bestselling mystery author whose newest release, The Raven Thief, is the second book in the Secret Staircase Mystery series and features a fake séance, an impossible murder, and intrepid sleuthing.
If you follow my reviews on Instagram, you’ll know just how much I loved book one in this series, Under Lock & Skeleton Key (and The Raven Thief is equally fun!). These books are cozy and whimsical, but with head-scratching mystery puzzles that keep you entertained.
In the interview below, Gigi and I chat about the new book, Golden Age detective fiction, themes of family and culture, and more.
Connect with Gigi on Instagram, Facebook, BookBub, Amazon, and her website. Subscribe to her newsletter here and receive a free novelette and mini cookbook. Purchase The Raven Thief here.
Hi Gigi, thanks for joining! The Raven Thief, book two in your Secret Staircase Mystery series starring illusionist sleuth Tempest Raj, poses a locked room murder puzzle: during a fake séance, a body appears on the table—yet the eight participants never broke their circle of clasped hands. When plotting an intricate and seemingly impossible murder, how do you approach it? Do you start with the setup, or the solution?
Thanks for the invitation! I approach writing with the feeling I want to evoke: mysterious but lighthearted, with likable characters going on an adventure of some kind.
Before I was a mystery novelist, I was an avid mystery reader, and I still love the feeling that certain novels gave me the first time I read them, which is why I start there. Sometimes it was characters I adored that elevated the novel, sometimes it was an evocative setting brought to life by the author, and sometimes it was the aha moment when a baffling puzzle is brilliantly solved at the end. So in my own writing, I’ve tried to meld all of my favorite things together.
With that in mind, sometimes the solution of a complex mystery is the starting point, and sometimes it’s characters I see clearly in a certain location. So I approach each book differently, even my impossible crime novels like The Raven Thief. I didn’t start with the entire four-part puzzle. I had a couple of elements of the solution worked out before I began writing, but not all of it. Instead, I thought about the fun setting of a mystery-novel-themed home interior I wanted to create, and how Tempest and her friends and family would interact with it. My characters gave me the answers to the rest of the puzzle. And the tagline for the book: One murder. Four impossibilities. A fake séance hides a very real crime.
Both Under Lock & Skeleton Key and The Raven Thief reference plenty of Golden Age detective fiction, from Anthony Berkeley’s The Poisoned Chocolates Case to John Dickson Carr’s series featuring Dr. Gideon Fell. What do you love about these classic works of crime fiction? What do you think contemporary mystery writers can learn from the original masters of the genre?
The Raven Thief is a locked-room mystery series that directly pays homage to the Golden Age of detective fiction, but with my own modern twist. I love that in books from that era, the misdirection that authors created was much more about the fair-play clues than the psychology of the characters. My favorite books in the genre are lighthearted romps where you know that the puzzling mystery will be cleverly solved at the end. Authors like Anthony Berkley, John Dickson Carr, and Agatha Christie have made a deal with the reader in which the clues will be fairly presented.
In theory, the reader can solve the crime when the detective does. In practice, I never try to do that. It’s much more fun and satisfying to go along for the ride and then see how everything falls into place at the end.
One thing I’m doing in my books is developing characters and their relationships more than in some Golden Age novels, because I enjoy that as a reader.
What I especially loved about the Secret Staircase Mysteries is Tempest’s family and close-knit community alongside strong Indian and Scottish influences. What did you like about incorporating these themes of family and culture in a cozy mystery?
Thank you! Those elements were central to the idea for the series. The Secret Staircase Mysteries are locked-room mysteries featuring stage illusionist Tempest Raj, who uses her skills creating misdirection for her family’s home renovation company that builds magic into peoples’ homes through elements like sliding bookcases and hidden rooms. Secret Staircase Construction was founded by Tempest’s parents, so Tempest’s family is built into the premise. Her Indian grandfather and Scottish grandmother live in an in-law unit in the backyard — which happens to be a tree house.
My dad is from South India and my mom is of mixed ancestry including Scottish, and I’ve been traveling to India and Scotland since I was a kid. Those cultures are also incorporated into my Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mysteries, but Jaya is always jetting off to another country, whereas I wrote the book that became the first Secret Staircase Mystery right after the pandemic began. Therefore it was a wonderful escape to create a cozy small town that Tempest has just moved home to, with a family and friends surrounding her.
In addition to the Secret Staircase Mysteries, also write the Accidental Alchemist and Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mystery series. How do you approach writing these three different series, especially when it comes to planning the mystery?
It’s less that I plan different series differently, and more that I’ve evolved as a writer in the decade since I’ve been a published author. I trust myself a lot more as a writer now than I did at the start of my career.
I always love to ask authors what’s coming up on their horizon. Can we expect any more books with Tempest and her gang? Do you have anything else in the works that you’d like to share?
I’m putting the finishing touches on Book 3 in the Secret Staircase mystery series, and then I’m returning to revisions on Book 7 in my Accidental Alchemist mystery series. I love alternating between series, because my brain needs time to set aside a draft manuscript and come back to it with fresh eyes. I’m having so much fun with everything I’m writing.
Thanks so much to Gigi for the interview. Sleuths, I hope you enjoyed it! If you aren’t already subscribed, please be sure to sign up for the Cluesletter and get author features like this alongside other mystery goodies, delivered to your inbox every other Tuesday.