Ragtime in Simla

World War I hero and Scotland Yard detective Joe Sandilands is traveling to Simla, summer capital of the British Raj, when he is thrust abruptly—and bloodily—into his second case of serial murder: His traveling companion, a Russian opera singer, is shot dead at his side in the Governor of Bengal’s touring car at a crossroads known as Devil’s Elbow. Like Cleverly’s award-winning and enthusiastically reviewed The Last Kashmiri Rose, which debuted Sandilands, Ragtime in Simla effectively combines exotic settings with high suspense in a deftly plotted tale of 1920s India. At Simla, in the pine-scented Himalayan hills, the English colonials have re-created a bit of home with half-timbered houses, glittering dinner tables, amateur theatricals, and gymkhanas. But when Joe’s murder investigation turns up an identical unsolved killing a year earlier, he begins to uncover behind the close-knit community’s sparkling facade a sinister trail of blackmail, vice, and deadly secrets.