James Ziskin--Bombay Monsoon

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I'm a huge fan of James Ziskin's award-winning Ellie Stone novels, featuring 1960s New York reporter Ellie Stone, but his upcoming BOMBAY MONSOON, out December 6th, is something completely different. I absolutely cannot wait to read this book, and I asked Jim to tell us what inspired such a departure.

JAMES W. ZISKIN: Bombay Monsoon is a new direction for me. I’ve had a lot of fun writing the seven Ellie Stone books, and I intend to write more, but I was overdue to try something else. The idea of a thriller set in India had been simmering in my mind for a long time. I’ve made fifty-six separate trips to India over the past twenty-five years and, all told, have spent nearly four years there. I even got married in India. It’s a second home to me.

The Ellie Stone books feature a twenty-something female first-person narrator. If you look at my photo above, you may understand why I wanted to try a male narrator for a change. Write something involving my own experience. And so India naturally came to mind. After all, I was an expat living a wonderfully rich life in Bangalore, Mumbai (Bombay), and Pune (Poona). Surely there was a story I could tell about that.

 SYNOPSIS

 Bombay Monsoon

The year is 1975. Danny Jacobs is an ambitious, young American journalist who’s just arrived in Bombay for a new assignment. He’s soon caught up in the chaos of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s domestic “Emergency.”

Willy Smets is Danny’s enigmatic expat neighbor. He’s a charming man, but with suspicious connections. As a monsoon drenches Bombay, Danny falls hard for Sushmita, Smets’s beguiling and clever lover—and the infatuation is mutual.

“The Emergency,” a virtual coup by the prime minister, is only the first twist in the high-stakes drama of Danny’s new life in India. The assassination of a police officer by a Marxist extremist, as well as Danny’s obsession with the inscrutable Sushmita, conspire to put his career—and life—in jeopardy. And, of course, the temptations of Willy Smets’s seductive personality sit squarely at the heart of the matter.

THE EMERGENCY

I love historical fiction. I love reading it and writing it. And while many people might not think a book set in 1975 qualifies as historical, I say it is. And I’ll fight you. If readers can ding you for anachronisms and historical errors, it’s a historical novel.

Article 352 of the Indian Constitution provides for broad powers in the event of a domestic emergency. On June 25, 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi invoked Article 352 and did precisely that. After the courts had ruled her 1971 election to parliament invalid (you can’t be PM if you’re not an MP), she declared an emergency and immediately started throwing her political opponents in jail, canceling elections, censoring the press, and suspending due process and civil liberties. Twenty-one months of rule by decree followed. The world’s largest democracy was anything but.

 What better time to set a thriller than during an existential threat to democracy? That’s what I asked myself when considering the book I wanted to write. I was fascinated by this period in history. The world was still engaged in its Cold War chess match. India was a non-aligned nation and, as such, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union courted Mrs. Gandhi. She was a powerful figure in the geopolitical landscape of 1975. So when she declared the Emergency, the world took notice. Here’s a scene from Bombay Monsoon where Danny meets an American businessman in a hotel.

 

“Mrs. Gandhi has taken over,” he said in a low voice. “Might as well be a coup. Mark my words, no court is going to throw her out of office. That conviction of hers will disappear faster than shit goes through a goose. World’s largest democracy, my ass. This country’s no better than a tinpot dictatorship.”

I considered his words. He might well have been right. One thing was for sure, though. He was an asshole. The ugly American. I wished I hadn’t sat down, but I wanted information, and he seemed to have some.

 

 WILLY SMETS

I’m a great admirer of Graham Greene’s and his “entertainments” involving strangers in foreign lands. I think my character Willy Smets would be right at home in a Greene story. He’s the charming, avuncular neighbor who takes Danny under his wing. But is he who he seems to be?

 

The first time I met Willy Smets, he told me I could think of Indians either as the obstacles to my happiness or the means to achieve it. Having materialized from the smoke and chatter behind me, he spoke directly into my ear and scared the hell out of me. I reeled around to see who belonged to the voice with an accent I couldn’t quite place. A European man of about forty-five or fifty.

“My name is Willy Smets,” he said. His thin lips stretched into a smile, baring a line of long teeth. “This is my place. And you, young man, have only recently arrived in Bombay.”

I blushed. “Is it so obvious?”

 

 

I also wanted to write something that echoed Greene’s themes and settings. India was the perfect locale for such a story, and the 1970s couldn’t have been more suitable. The novel I had in mind reminded me a bit of Gatsby, so the elevator pitch became: “Graham Greene meets Gatsby on the Subcontinent.” Catchy, no?

DANNY

Danny Jacobs is a young journalist looking to make a name for himself. He’s reported from Chile, from Africa, and from Vietnam. Now he arrives in Bombay just as Mrs. Gandhi clamps down on freedom of the press. What’s a reporter to do? Maybe embark on a dangerous, ill-advised romance with his expat neighbor’s lover? Sure. Why not? What could go wrong?

 

Her name was Sushmita. Easily half Smets’s age, she was a couple of years younger than I was, too. An extremely attractive girl, she was sexy, but hardly perfect. There was that one slightly crooked incisor, for example, and a small scar at the side of her right eye, caused perhaps by a childhood fall. And those matrimonial classifieds in Indian newspapers might have described her complexion as dusky. Shameful, I thought.

 

Look, I told myself, I had no intention of betraying my friend with his girl. But then, how well did I know him? And even if I allowed myself wild fantasies of what might happen with Sushmita, I certainly didn’t have the guts to act on my baser instincts. It was a game. Get as close as I dared to crossing the very desirable point of no return, then step back with honor intact. The only problem was determining where the point of no return began and where honor ended.

 

 SUSHMITA

The object of Danny’s obsession is the inscrutable Sushmita, who lives with Willy Smets in the penthouse apartment. Quite unexpectedly, she emerged as the driving force in my story. (That happens more often than you’d think. Characters take on a larger role that we had originally planned for them. It usually works out for the best.) Danny is never sure of where he stands with this Cambridge-educated woman who seems to return his affections. Until she doesn’t. She’s damaged, somehow, but Danny can’t possibly know why. Sushmita is perhaps the most complex character I’ve ever dreamt up.

  

PREJUDICE AND COLORISM

Through Danny’s eyes, I explored two important social themes in Indian society: the treatment of the plight of the servant class and the ever-present scourge of colorism, prejudice based on skin color. Upon his arrival in Bombay, Danny suffers major culture shock, particularly when confronted with the treatment of domestic help. He’s horrified by the indifferent and callous attitudes inherent in the rigid class system. Then there’s the obsession over fair skin. Sushmita clearly has experienced deep trauma over the darkness of her own complexion. Through her tears, she tells Danny how a matron at school had tormented her over the color of her skin.

 

“For seven years she made me feel ugly. Called me a black jungli. She stole my soap and replaced it with a jar of Afghan Snow. Then she invited the other girls to laugh at me.”

“Afghan Snow?”

She glowered. “Skin cream. It makes your skin lighter. Until you wash it off. Then you’re just as ugly as before.”

 

HORN OK PLEASE

 Anyone who’s ever traveled by road in India has seen the exhaust-belching trucks with their brightly painted signs proclaiming “HORN OK PLEASE.” This means it’s okay to sound your horn as a warning that you’re going to overtake (pass). In Bombay Monsoon, I went to great pains to describe the terror of driving in India, especially outside the city. Especially on dangerous mountain roads. I experienced this terror first hand when scaling the Western Ghats of Maharashtra more than twenty-five years ago. The Ghats are the mountains that rise from the coastal plain to the Deccan plateau. Today you climb the Ghats via a safe, modern highway, but my first trip up and down was on a two-lane, pockmarked road that hugged the side of the mountain. There were few, if any, guardrails. And if you think the drivers slowed down and took extra care due to the cliffs and the certain death awaiting a missed turn, think again. It was a rollercoaster ride without seatbelts or safety bars. It was and has remained the most terrifying ride of my life. And I wrote it into Bombay Monsoon. Happy reading!

 

THE FRAIL FOOTHOLD OF DEMOCRACY

 As I researched and began to write Bombay Monsoon, I couldn’t help but notice the parallels between Mrs. Gandhi’s attempts to retain power and the failed insurrection of January 6, 2021 in our own country. In both cases, democracy was under siege. In June 1975, Mrs. Gandhi prevailed. In January 2021, our democracy did. As Danny reflects on the Emergency in Bombay Monsoon, he observes—somewhat sardonically—that only one year before, in 1974, Richard Nixon had resigned the presidency and set a higher ethical standard than did the Indian prime minister. Nixon did not attempt a coup to retain power. Whether he saw the writing on the wall or was forced to go, he did. No attacks on the Capitol. And, believe it or not, I am grateful to Richard Nixon for that.

Bombay Monsoon (Oceanview Publishing) will be available in hardcover, e-book, and audiobook versions on December 6, 2022.

 

BIO

James W. Ziskin (Jim) is the author of the Anthony, Barry, and Macavity Award-winning Ellie Stone Mysteries. His books have been finalists multiple times for the Edgar, Anthony, Barry, Lefty, and Macavity awards. His short story, “The Twenty-Five-Year Engagement,” was a finalist for the 2021 Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards for Best Short Story. His latest novel, Turn to Stone, won the Barry Award for Best Paperback Original, and the Macavity for Best Historical Mystery. Turn to Stone was also a finalist for the 2021 Sue Grafton Memorial Award and the Lefty Award for Best Historical Mystery. His next novel, Bombay Monsoon (Oceanview Publishing), is coming in December 2022.

His international experience includes two years working and studying in France, extensive time in Italy, and nearly four years in India. He speaks Italian and French.

James lives near Boston. He is represented by Kimberley Cameron of Kimberley Cameron and Associates,  https://www.kimberleycameron.com/

DEBS: Jim, your story about climbing the Western Ghats reminded me so much of trips on the old Pan American Highway to Mexico City when I was a child. That road was absolutely terrifying and I suspect those no-guardrail drop offs inspired my adult fear of heights.

Readers, have you visited India, and if not, is it on your bucket list?

Jim, I also want to know what Indian languages you speak! 

REDS ALERT: Pamela Priest is the winner of Maya Corrigan's BAKED OFF! Pamela, email me your address at deb at deborahcrombie dot com and I will forward it to Maya!

 

 

 

 

James Ziskin--Useful as Tailfins on a Car

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Who watched the Belmont Stakes on Saturday?? Wasn't it fabulous, watching Justify win the Triple Crown? Every year after Affirmed won in 1978, I watched the Belmont and thought, "Maybe this time..." I was beginning to wonder if I was doomed to disappointment when American Pharoah won in 2015. And, now, Justify, just three years later! 

It was a great race, and here to continue the horse-racing euphoria is our Jungle Red friend James Ziskin, with a new Ellie Stone novel, A STONE'S THROW, which just happens to be set at Saratoga, the other New York racetrack.

Jim, I think it was extremely clever of you to time your book release with a Triple Crown race!

As Useful as Tail Fins on a Car

James Ziskin

“Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.”

—Arthur Quiller-Couch

I write a series of traditional/noirish mysteries set in the early 1960s, starring “girl reporter” Ellie Stone. As often happens when I’m writing one of these books, I come across a bit of interesting but non-essential research that demands to be included in the story. Now I know we’re supposed to be merciless when it comes to editing out the extraneous, the unnecessary, and the self-indulgent—we’re told to murder our darlings—but I don’t respond well to rules. Or rather, I’m a believer in bending them to hear the cartoonish creaking noises they make before they break. Sometimes these extra flourishes serve to enhance the scenery, inform, or create a fuller sense of time and place. I think of them as a stylistic choice. After all, don’t some people prefer a simple life of moderation and temperance, while others enjoy swallowing the entire banquet then visiting the vomitorium to make room for more? Window frames are nonessential to the façade of a building, aren’t they? But, to many of us, they look nice. And turrets and gables, too. Both these skyscrapers are beautiful in their own ways, aren’t they?

(Whispering: These are metaphors for writing styles.)

Consider the tail lights on these two Cadillacs, one from 1959 and one from 2018.

They perform the same function, but in very different styles. The 1959 model’s lights are affixed to the most over-the-top tail fins of the outrageous tail-fin era. The 2018 model is Spartan, clean, and modern. Which is better? That depends on one’s taste. It’s what makes a horse race.

Which brings me to my latest Ellie Stone mystery, A STONE’S THROW, a book set in the world of Thoroughbred horse racing of Saratoga Springs, New York. In this novel, and in all of my others, I have included many of the facts and details I uncovered while researching the early 1960s time period. And, I confess, sometimes these facts and details weren’t exactly essential to the plot. I call these transgressions “tail fins.” There are rafts of rules and interdictions that prescribe what writers are supposed to include and not include in their work. Elaborate description is one of them. Extraneous information is another. Opening your book with weather is a no-no. And I agree… Except when I don’t. Never accept “never.” What if someone had told Picasso never to put both eyes on the same side of the nose?

One “tail fin” I’m glad I included in A STONE’S THROW was a horse race. An actual horse race. The 1962 Travers Stakes, to be exact. The Travers is the showcase event of the Saratoga Thoroughbred season every August. And as fate would have it, the 1962 edition is widely considered to be the greatest Travers Stakes ever. Two heavy favorites, Jaipur and Ridan, were the class of the race, and they did not disappoint. They led from post to wire, side by side for a mile and a quarter—never separated by more than a neck—and treated the huge crowd to a duel of epic proportions, culminating in a thrilling photo finish. The difference was a nose. 

Jaipur (l) and Ridan (r) battling down the home stretch

Jaipur (3) and Ridan (2) photo finish, Travers Stakes, August 18, 1962

Travers Stakes, August 18, 1962, at Saratoga.      

So why did I slap this “tail fin” on my car? For several reasons. One, because it was there. To have ignored it might have left readers wondering why such an important event was missing. Imagine telling a story set on November 22, 1963, and failing to mention what happened in Dallas that same day? Two, because it gave me a chance to show how Ellie is affected by the beauty and courage of the two horses. That tells us something important about her. Three, because it contributed to the general pageantry and backdrop I was trying to paint of the Saratoga racetrack in August. And four, because it was as thrilling as a 1959 Cadillac tail fin.

A STONE’S THROW is the sixth Ellie Stone mystery (from Seventh Street Books June 5, 2018).

August 1962. A suspicious fire claims a tumbledown foaling barn on the grounds of the once-proud Tempesta stud farm near Saratoga Springs, NY. The blaze, one of several in recent years at the abandoned farm, barely prompts a shrug from the local sheriff. That is until "girl reporter" Ellie Stone, first on the scene, uncovers a singed length of racing silk in the rubble of the barn. And it's wrapped around the neck of one of two charred bodies buried in the ashes. A bullet between the eyes of one of the victims confirms it's murder, and the police suspect gamblers. Ellie digs deeper.

The double murder, committed on a ghostly stud farm in the dead of night, leads Ellie down a haunted path, just a stone's throw from the glamour of Saratoga Springs, to a place where dangerous men don't like to lose. Unraveling secrets from the past--crushing failure and heartless betrayal--she's learning that arson can be cold revenge.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James W. Ziskin, Jim to his friends, is the Anthony and Macavity Award-winning author of the Ellie Stone mysteries. His novels have also been finalists for the Edgar, Barry, and Lefty awards. Before turning to writing full time, he worked in New York as a photo-news producer and writer, as director of NYU’s Casa Italiana, and as a Hollywood postproduction executive, running large international operations in the subtitling/localization and visual effects fields. His international experience includes two years working and studying in France, extensive time in Italy, and more than three years in India. He speaks Italian and French. Jim can be reached through his website www.jameswziskin.com or on Twitter @jameswziskin.

DEBS: Jim, I love that you included the Travers Stakes! And it dovetails perfectly with the plot. In this case, at least, I am definitely a tail fins girl.

REDS and readers, what about you? Do you believe writers should "murder their darlings?"