Books: Death on a Distant Island
Maya Mallick, the able detective created by Bharti Kirchner, springs into action in a new adventure. It might be just the prescription we need while hunkered down during the winter months of the pandemic. And we get to travel vicariously “to an isolated cluster of islands belonging to India, strung like a chain of jewels off the coast of Myanmar in the Indian Ocean,” as Kirchner puts it.
Subir Mullick, a legendary detective with the Kolkata police department, was the father of Maya Mallick, who is just two years into her work as a private detective in Seattle. His murder, when Maya was just nine, remains an unsolved mystery. But Maya is all about solving mysteries. In Murder at Andaman: A Maya Mallick Mystery (Camel Press), her antennae are up when she finds out that Rory Thompson, a dear friend, was murdered in Port Blair, the capital of Anadaman and Nicobar Islands.
Maya has a personal connection to the case: Rory’s wife, Lee (Leena), is Maya’s best friend in Seattle. The two understand each other’s common Indian backgrounds and are close in age. They share every secret, including the fact that Lee is expecting after years of struggle with infertility. Lee had been excited to be accompanying
Rory on his trip to the Andamans, a place he visits frequently for business, and it was there that she was to break news of the pregnancy.
On this visit to the Andamans, Rory was scheduled to be the keynote speaker at a literary festival. As a publisher of Roaring Books, an independent literary house based in Seattle, Rory specialized in edgy social and political exposes. So why exactly was he found hacked to death in Port Blair’s “alley of tricks,” in the city’s red-light district?
When Lee reaches out to Maya, looking to recruit her as a private detective on the case, Maya is worried about her involvement jeopardizing their close friendship. Having left India as a teenager, Maya is also unsure how she will navigate the social mores on the ground, especially in the Andamans, a region that’s a mystery even to other Indians. Maya’s Seattle private detective operations are part of a Kolkata-based agency, Detectives Unlimited, but working in the United States means Maya is unfamiliar with the Indian Penal Code.
Maya, not fazed for long, accepts Lee’s assignment and flies to the Andamans to track down the killer. Maya’s assistant, Hank, and his 20-year-old girlfriend, Sophie, add color to the proceedings. Hank’s hijinks as a fumbling millennial are especially endearing. As expected, Maya runs into roadblocks frequently. The local chief inspector doesn’t appreciate her role: “As a woman, she was at a gender disadvantage. As a newcomer and a private detective, she wouldn’t be trusted with classified dossiers,” Kirchner explains. Worse, the locals, including a colorful cabbie, are tight-lipped at least at first and then leave cryptic warnings about the trouble outsiders could run into on the island.
But Maya’s external spectator status allows her to sniff out the true motives of people and find clues in places that are not readily apparent. Apart from the overzealous cabbie there’s a high-profile author who just might have been the last person who saw Rory alive, local high-society folks—Esme Peterson and Jorge, her brother—and a call girl named Zarina. They all register on Maya’s highly sensitive radar.
Kirchner also gives us a very brief peek into the history of the islands: the Japanese invaded the Andamans, which continue to be of geopolitical significance, during World War II. More recently, the islands made international news when an American missionary was killed due to arrow injuries by the Sentilese, a tribe on a remote island in the chain. Indian law protects these islanders so they can preserve their way of life. While Kirchner delves briefly into the Badungs, another tribe in the Andamans, she colors strictly within the lines of a murder mystery and doesn’t explore these parallel aspects much. In that sense, despite the setting, the mystery comes off as a tad colorless and less vibrant than it could have been. There is often talk about Port Blair being a paradise but even this becomes a case of more tell and less show.
These quibbles aside, the end result is a lively and entertaining mystery that transports readers to a new, exotic and warm locale. Maya Mullick makes for an endearing and simultaneously whip-smart detective. Murder at Andaman is a breezy and fun addition to the Maya Mallick series.
Poornima Apte is a Boston-based freelance writer. Find her on Twitter @booksnfreshair
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