Gigi Pandian

fiction/mystery (3rd in series, should definitely be read in order) - featuring 26-y.o. Scottish-Indian ex-magician Tempest Raj, set in a town on the east side of the San Francisco Bay area,, with tasty vegan/vegetarian recipes for quick dosa and chocolate almond spread, plus mango ice cream😋

We finally find out who killed Tempest's mom and aunt, and what Moriarty's whole deal is, though there is still room for Tempest to continue sleuthing if she wishes (or if, for some reason, the police keep naming her family members as prime suspects in local murder cases).

the first book in the series is my fave but I liked the conclusion, and I would definitely read more from this author.

april 2024 bingo challenge: includes a prologue (not named as such, but it precedes Chapter 1 and sets up the tensions of the story)… (meer)

This would've been so much better if 100 pages were shaved off. It took forever for the story to end. It was stretched out and so, so repetitive. If I hear the word, misdirection one more time... you can make a drinking game out of it. On the positive, I liked all the characters; although their antics and dialogue reminds you of Scooby-Doo and young adult-ish, nevertheless it leaves one with a warm, cozy feeling. I like the author's writing style & wit.

The mystery was fine. I just wish it wasn't so long and repetitive.… (meer)

Gigi Pandian’s cozy mystery is set primarily in Scotland. Jaya Jones, a historian who lives in San Francisco, receives an artifact in the mail from an old boyfriend who had been working at an archaeological dig in Scotland. When her house gets burglarized and she discovers her old boyfriend has died in what may or may not have been an accident, she tries to discover what is so important about this jeweled artifact – and that takes her all the way to Scotland. With names like Rupert, Angus, Fergus, and Malcolm, it reminded me of another story set in Scotland… anybody else recognize those names?

Anyway, she heads off to the Scottish highlands with a handsome (of course!) historian she just met who knows something about the artifact and the story reads like a treasure hunt adventure - with some potential romance thrown in, a few surprises, and some pretty interesting history. This is the first in a series, so I will likely read more Jaya Jones mystery/ adventures in the future!… (meer)

Former stage magician and illusionist Tempest Raj is settling into her new life as a co-creator of secret rooms in her father’s construction firm, Secret Staircase Construction, when problems for the firm begin: after the wife of a client falls on a special staircase the company had built, putting her in a coma, the husband threatens to sue the company for negligence. It doesn’t matter that all signs point to the husband being the culprit, or that he has a history of such lawsuits, the situation is such that Secret Staircase Construction may be destroyed because of the lawsuit. So when the man is found murdered at the theater Tempest has rented for a final magic show, she feels relieved, but compelled to find out just who murdered the man, and why he was murdered in that particular place, the site of her own mother’s disappearance…. This is the third Secret Staircase novel, and by now Tempest, her family and her close friends have all become quite beloved characters whose antics and neuroses are quite believable. I had a bit of trouble early on, when Ms. Pandian repeated the same information several times; it felt like she didn’t trust her readers to remember items from one chapter to the next. However, that repetition resolved after a while and it was subsequently easy to go with the flow of the writing, which is quite enjoyable in itself. Having lived for many years in the San Francisco Bay Area, I also much appreciate the setting of the novels (as a slightly masked version of Berkeley), but obviously one doesn’t need to be a resident of the area to enjoy the stories! There is a resolution of some of Tempest’s major life mysteries at the end of this book, but fortunately Ms. Pandian in her Afterword mentions that she still has many more stories to tell about Tempest and her world, which is great because I definitely want to read more of them! Recommended, but start with “Under Lock and Skeleton Key,” the first in the series.… (meer)