Julia Spencer-Fleming: As you might guess, I have a soft spot for the winners of the Minotaur Best First Mystery contests. Steve Hamilton, Donna Andrews, Michael Koryta and I all started our careers by winning one of the awards, and now it's Nev March's turn, with Murder in Old Bombay.
Reviews for her debut historical, set in 1890s India, use words like "sumptous," "thrilling," "authentic" and "lyrical." Robin Agnew, of the beloved Aunt Agatha's Books, named Murder in Old Bombay one of the Top Ten Mysteries of 2020. (You'll have a chance to judge for yourself - we're giving away a copy to one lucky commenter!)
Murder in Old Bombay is an own-voices dive into gender, caste and colonialism, all wrapped in a clever mystery tackled by Anglo-Indian army captain Jim Agnihotri, who loves Sherlock Holmes stories. He's a man accustomed to a man's world, but, as Nev march tells us, he has to immerse himself in the lives of 19th century Indian women to solve his case.
My
novel Murder in Old Bombay is a hunt for justice that uncovers both, a secret
plot and the not-so-secret ways that women in India were--and sometimes still
are--devalued. However, I did not begin with a plan to write about it.
In India, crime against women takes uniquely peculiar forms: dowry deaths of brides burned in so-called kitchen accidents because their father could not pay a larger dowry to greedy in-laws, the honor killing of daughters who had the temerity to run off with a lower caste lover, and more. In recent years the rape and murder of women in India has risen to outrageous levels. Decades ago, while still in college I heard about awful incidents that were never reported; police were ill-prepared to deal with rape victims, and the prevalent notion was that the victim was somehow responsible—she ‘asked for it’ by leading on the perpetrator, dressed provocatively, or put herself at risk by being at an unsafe place. Perhaps the recent rise in numbers is apparent because women now come forward to report crimes that were previously hushed up.
Traditional cultures tend to overvalue males for their ability to earn and support families, so it’s no surprise that attitudes of entitlement over women are more prevalent in India, the largest county of Southeast Asia. The reality is appalling: a World Health Organization study found that whopping 37.7% of women in Southeast Asia were victims of intimate partner violence, the highest percent of any country. If one includes assaults by strangers, 40.2% of Southeast Asian women were victims of violence, second only to Africa. However, when you live in such an environment even this seems ordinary, so I did not plan to write about it, but only wondered whether I could solve a hundred year old mystery, the death of two wealthy young women in Bombay.
In Murder in Old Bombay, young detective Captain Jim searches for the murderers of two young women killed in broad daylight in the middle of a University. Although three men were tried for the crime, they were acquitted for lack of an eyewitness. As Captain Jim hunts through the maze of evidence, he uncovers darker secrets and a plot in plain sight, unremarkable because it’s a culture where women have less worth, less authority over themselves, less substance.
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| Girl making roti on a wood fire (Pinterest) |
To bring this into focus, I introduced Chutki, a child prostitute. While travelling across the North Indian plains, Captain Jim comes across a tragic waif who’s been bartered from hand to hand yet still maintains an odd sort of self-composure, and he wins her loyalty. The girl Chutki is based on a young woman I saw begging on the road near Bandra Station, Mumbai. Having been trained to avoid eye-contact, I walked past, ignoring her, but as I waited for the bus I could not help watching her. Looking barely fifteen years old, she sat cross-legged before a pillar wearing an old cotton sari whose pullu covered the infant in her lap. Her gaze rose, dull, unseeing, and caught mine--what despair it revealed! Agonizing over the little cash I carried, I felt a kinship with that bedraggled girl. Then her chin rose, and with it, a sense of composure, of dignity. She would not give up on herself yet. The bus arrived while I debated leaving my place in line to hand her some money, and I was jostled up the stairs to cram into a seat. That child-mother passed from my sight but has stayed in my memory to become Chutki, a minor character who became the fulcrum of my novel as she demonstrates the true meaning of courage in a world that does not value her.
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‘Unidentified Parsi lady’ by Raja Ravi Verma-- private collection of Vanita Bhandari |
Hired by the Framji family, Captain Jim meets Adi, the widower, and Diana. Adi’s sister Diana epitomizes the educated young woman in the late 1800s, comfortable in her own social position and privilege. To an educated girl, how the restrictions on women must have chafed! Diana wants to use her abilities to help the investigation, but soon runs afoul of her family’s ‘rules’. These rules govern her movements--where she can go and who she can meet--protecting her modesty, marriageability and her safety. But Diana is no weak Victorian miss—her zeal, her inventiveness, and her education in England was inspired by real-life lady lawyer Cornelia Sorabji, who wrote five books including Memories, published in 1934. Diana’s use of her social connections and understanding of state politics are also inspired by Ms. Sorabji’s adventures. Like many young women I grew up with, Diana’s bold actions often land her in hot soup. Must she be rescued like some pale damsel? No, during her time in England, Diana has encountered trouble already, and it has hardened her, with surprising results.
Being a military man, Captain Jim thinks in terms of hierarchy. While Adi ‘reports’ to his father Burjor, what Captain Jim does not realize is that landowner and patriarch Burjor reports to his unassuming wife Mrs. Framji. In many ways the character of Mrs. Framji is based on my mother Silloo.
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Decking the Bride: 1893 Painting of Parsi ladies by Raja Ravi Verma |
When I left India in 1991, my mother wept. Yet she’d been determined that I should go. “Build a new life in the USA, further your education and reach your full potential,” she said.
We were more than mother-daughter. She once said, “When I was little, I had no sisters to talk with. So I asked God for a daughter and he gave me two!” That bond strengthened as I grew up, so that when I migrated, she felt the silence deeply. Yet in those days of preparation she did not mention the loss to herself, only kept up a cheerful face as I went to and fro. Like mum, my character Mrs. Framji runs a large household, managing tradesmen, servants, and her children’s education. But it is her giving nature, in the end, that allowed me to find a neat resolution to the quandary I’d set up in my plot.
Mysteries are about the hunt for justice. We read them to for the ‘aha’ moment, the reveal, the uncovering of villains, the moment his mask drops. But in real life, like in Dame Agatha Christy’s mysteries, the villains are right among us, wearing elegant suits or charming smiles. And they often succeed because of our way of thinking--we look away, blame the victim, or chalk it down to the unfairness of life. Mysteries reveal the how and why about those who harm others, and sometimes, our own biases. In doing so, they might just draw back the curtain on our way of thinking and bare the truths we do not want to see.
JULIA: Why is it some of the most fascinating fictional characters are those with the most straitened lives? Reading about how women navigated the roles allowed to them is one of my favorite things about historical fiction. How about you, dear reader? Who are the historical heroines you love? What questions to you have for Nev March? One lucky commenter will get a free copy of Murder in Old Bombay!
You can find out more about Nev and her writing at her website. You can talk books with her at Goodreads, friend her on Facebook, and follow her on Twitter as @nevmarch
