I am so excited to introduce today’s featured author, Harini Nagendra, author of the Bangalore Detectives Club series set in 1920s India, and professor of ecology at Azim Premji University. Book two in the series, Murder Under a Red Moon, is out now. In the interview below, Harini and I discuss 1920s India, plotting mysteries, and the surprising overlap between ecology research and writing mystery.
Connect with Harini on Twitter, Instagram, and her website. Grab a copy of Murder Under a Red Moon from your favorite retailer here.
Hi Harini, thanks so much for joining! Murder Under a Red Moon is the second installment in your Bangalore Detectives Club series, which stars clever amateur sleuth Kaveri Murthy. What do you love about Kaveri’s character? In your opinion, what are the most important traits that a fictional sleuth should have?
Thank you for having me in the Cluesletter, Manon! It’s a great pleasure to be here. Kaveri is one of my favorite characters – she parachuted into my head one day in 2007, insisting I write a book about her. I love her spunk and fearlessness – she has a keen sense of justice, and wants to see the right thing done. I believe that we read and love crime fiction because we want to see truth prevail, and good triumph over evil. It may sound cliché but it’s a timeless desire, and a deep-rooted one. Despite all the changes we see in crime fiction today – including unreliable narrators, complex heroes, and villains in shades of gray – I’d say this still holds resonance. Apart from being compelled to find out the truth, and set things to order, a fictional sleuth must have a keen intelligence, empathy and understanding of human character, and a sense of fearlessness that allows them to go out and investigate, even when they put themselves in grave danger! That’s why it’s fiction – it’s escapist, and we love it.
The series is set in southern India during the 1920s. What do you find most intriguing about this time period? What kind of historical research did you do while writing these books?
I love the 1920s – it’s my absolute favorite time period to read about, especially in crime fiction. Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver are especially my favorites. The period between the two World Wars was also a period of great promise for women in India, who debated issues of suffrage, women’s empowerment and education, much like their counterparts in the West – but also dealt with other issues like the imposition of colonial rule, and caste and gender stipulations by society that added another layer of complexity (and oppression).
While there is increasing interest in historical crime fiction in colonial India, and a number of excellent writers such as Sujata Massey, Abir Mukherjee and Vaseem Khan write books set in this period, they are all set in north India. Southern India – in particular Bangalore, the focus of my historical crime fiction books – is also the location of my academic research as an ecologist. I’ve been working on the history of Bangalore since 2006. I was fortunate to have a pre-existing collection of archival documents, maps, books, oral histories, photographs, newspaper articles and other kinds of material to draw on for my mystery series, so it’s been easy to write about the city – I know its history so intimately.
In addition to being a novelist, you are also a professor of ecology and have written several nonfiction books on sustainability, nature, and conservation. To what extent does your scholarship influence your crime novels? Are there any interesting or surprising overlaps between your fields?
My academic research and mystery writing are closely intertwined! Each time I read an archival document, looking for bits and pieces on ecology or nature, I find something interesting that I can put into a crime novel. For instance, when I looked at a legislative assembly discussion from 1921, I found a lengthy debate on women’s suffrage that was absolutely fascinating. This took me on a quest to find out the first woman elected to the legislative assembly of Mysore State (where Bangalore was embedded).
From this, I came across two inspiring women – Coffeepudi Sakamma, a child bride and young widow left with a small son, who rebounded from very difficult circumstances to become a coffee entrepreneur in 1920s Bangalore – and Kalyanamma, another child widow who then educated herself despite opposition from her mother, to become one of India’s best known women journalists. These two women wound their way into my second book, Murder Under A Red Moon, with one central character being especially inspired by Coffeepudi Sakamma.
I wasn’t expecting this! I dug into those archives as part of academic research I am doing on the history of a large dam in Mysore, but it ended up feeding into my fiction. But I love the serendipity of writing, the magical feeling that you experience when a new character walks into your book, and takes over, shaping the plot in unexpected ways and taking it in new directions you hadn’t imagined. That’s when the book really comes alive.
What’s your approach to writing a mystery? Are you a planner, or do you let the mystery develop as you write? Did you face any notable differences or challenges in writing the mysteries for these two novels?
I’m a pantser by orientation. I found it very difficult to plot my first book (The Bangalore Detectives Club), writing and rewriting it several times, as I worked out how to move forward. For books 2 (Murder Under A Red Moon) and 3 (as yet untitled, I’ve just turned in the manuscript), I needed to provide a plot outline to my agent and editor for comments. I tried pantsing the writing of the outline. Essentially, I dived into the first scene, and from there, worked my way to the next major event, and then the next, working out a somewhat lengthy summary of the plot, figuring out what happened next as I went along. I do deviate from this – new characters and plot twists work their way in as I write – but overall, this has been what worked for me for books 2 and 3. I have no idea how and if my writing process will change as I move forward in the series, but I look forward to finding out!
As the series evolves, I get to show how my main characters evolve and grow – Kaveri, her supportive husband Ramu, her acerbic mother-in-law Bhargavi; and her group of friends in the Bangalore Detectives Club – an ex-prostitute, a milk delivery boy, an inquisitive gossipy neighbour and a policeman’s wife. That’s been fun. Alongside, though, deeper tensions with the colonial British empire are beginning to emerge, as the Indian independence movement gathers force – and calls for women’s suffrage start to grow. The first book was more linear, with more time devoted to developing the characters and their backstories – for books 2 and 3, I can dive deeper into the plots, balancing multiple plot threads of inner and exterior tension, and integrating them into a single narrative. That is certainly more complex and challenging, but also very interesting to explore as a writer, pushing my own boundaries to try out something new.
Lastly, what are you currently working on? Can we expect more books in the Bangalore Detectives Club series, and/or do you have anything else in the works?
I just completed the (as yet untitled) book 3 in the series. The book is set in the time of the Prince of Wales’ visit to Bangalore, in January 1922 – a controversial time, with riots and violence erupting across the country, as people demanded that the British quit India. Along with the regular members of the Detectives Club, the book also features a few new characters – including a mysterious magician, a menacing family of wrestlers, and a freedom fighter on the run from the police. The series will continue, and I have started to brainstorm ideas for books 4, 5 and 6. On the nonfiction side, I’ve co-authored a book with my colleague Seema Mundoli. Shades of Blue, on challenges of water management in Indian cities, will be published by Penguin Random House in September.
Thanks so much to Harini 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.