How do you cope with the realisation that you never really knew the person you loved the most? This is the question driving a story set in India and Britain about a woman who struggles to keep secret a shocking discovery about the husband she had adored

Set in London, Bombay and Mahabaleshwar, The People We Know is a story about a Sikh woman, Sheela Marker, who has been harbouring a secret about something devastating she discovered a year ago about Cyrus, the Parsi husband she had worshipped as ‘the most flawless human being on earth’.  The narrative focuses on Sheela’s journey, from her desperate struggle to keep her secret to the pivotal moment when she finally finds the courage to reveal the truth about Cyrus.

The novel holds the reader in suspense, delicately handling a number of shocking revelations while at the same time dealing with a range of family and other relationships. It also addresses, quite possibly for the first time in fiction, a rare aspect of human behaviour that lies at the heart of the mystery surrounding Cyrus. This is one reason why readers have found the denouement totally unexpected.

Woven through the plot with its central mystery are a few leitmotifs that run through the book: first, how well do we know the people we know; second, the theme of intolerance of those who don’t “belong; and third, the complexity of relationships – in particular of love in all its forms – between family members, friends, people of different social classes and people from different countries, making the book a multi-layered love story.

The People We Know is Farrokh Suntook’s debut novel, although a business book of his – The Stakeholder Balance Sheet – was published some years ago. Following degrees from LSE and Columbia University, most of his working life has been in international marketing research and consultancy. He lives in London with his family, but makes regular visits to Bombay.

The People We Know has received an average reader rating on Amazon of 4.7 out of 5 and a highly favourable review in Parsiana  (see below). It also received a positive reception at two book events held in Bombay (at the Cama Institute and the Willingdon Club). The following YouTube interview – conducted by the well-known writer Farrukh Dhondy provides further background information about the author and the book.

The book is available in:

India

• at Kitab Khana
• online from Copper Coin (https://coppercoin.co.in/product/the-people-we-know)
• online from Amazon (https://www.amazon.in/dp/8194877253/)

UK

• online from Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09MYXX9G7)

North America

• online from Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/d/B09MYXX9G7)

Other countries

• from Amazon

This week on Cyrus Says, Cyrus is joined by the author – Prochy N Mehta. Prochy is here to talk about her latest book and the big question of ‘Who is a Parsi?’ Prochy Mehta is an icon in her own right. A successful sportswoman, the first lady president of the Calcutta Parsee Club, and Vice President of the West Bengal State hockey, basketball, and athletic Federations. Prochy has researched and written three books, Pioneering Parsis of Calcutta, Who is a Parsi? And a coffee table book which is a tribute to her father Rusi B Gimi. Follow Prochy on Instagram at @prochymehta

Dear Friends,

Please find below information on my “In Conversation” with the innovative classical and contemporary dancer, Uttara Asha Coorlawala.  The event, part of the NCPA Mumbai Dance Season, has been choreographed by Gauri Sharma Tripathi, noted Kathak dancer, around my book, “Joy, Awe and Tears”, which relates my forty-year experiences of artists’ management in Europe.  I am so grateful to both artists for their time and commitment to me and my book.

The event will take place on Saturday 4^th February from 3 to 4.30 pm at ANKH Cube in Deonar (a thirty-five-minute run on the Eastern Expressway from Regal Cinema in south Mumbai).

We so look forward to welcoming you amidst us.  Please do forward this mail to your Mumbai contacts.

With my thanks and warm wishes – Shireen Isal

The event will cover my very personal experiences in managing Indian artists in Europe, from the giants of Indian music to young and upcoming musicians and dancers, the joy, awe and tears, as the title so aptly suggests.  I will also discuss the situation of the Indian classical performing arts – it’s scope, audiences and organisers’ reactions – on the ground in Europe.  Lastly, but not least, I will offer an overview of the profession of an impresario (for Indian artists), a fascinating but all too rare and under-represented one in both India and the west.

Poster design: Tarini Tripathi

Captain Jim Agnihotri and his new bride, Diana Framji, return in Nev March’s Peril at the Exposition, the follow up to March’s award-winning, Edgar finalist debut, Murder in Old Bombay.

1893: Newlyweds Captain Jim Agnihotri and Diana Framji are settling into their new home in Boston, Massachusetts, having fled the strict social rules of British Bombay. It’s a different life than what they left behind, but theirs is no ordinary marriage: Jim, now a detective at the Dupree Agency, is teaching Diana the art of deduction he’s learned from his idol, Sherlock Holmes.

Everyone is talking about the preparations for the World’s Fair in Chicago: the grandeur, the speculation, the trickery. Captain Jim will experience it first-hand: he’s being sent to Chicago to investigate the murder of a man named Thomas Grewe. As Jim probes the underbelly of Chicago’s docks, warehouses, and taverns, he discovers deep social unrest and some deadly ambitions.

When Jim goes missing, young Diana must venture to Chicago’s treacherous streets to learn what happened. But who can she trust, when a single misstep could mean disaster?

Award-winning author Nev March mesmerized readers with her Edgar finalist debut, Murder in Old Bombay. Now, in Peril at the Exposition, she wields her craft against the glittering landscape of the Gilded Age with spectacular results.

Sophia Rose’s Review

While I picked up the first book for the setting and circumstances, I continued with the series for the author’s writing, attention to historical backdrop, and the well-developed, diverse cast of characters led by the complex bi-racial, Jim Agnihotri, and his Parsi wife, Diana.

Perils at the Exposition is book two in the Captain Jim Agnihotri series.  The book works best in order, but could be read without much difficulty, standalone.

Perils at the Exposition begins when, honeymooners, Jim and Diana are settled in Boston.  Diana is adjusting to living in a tiny apartment without the comforts and social status she once had in a wealthy Zoroastrian Persian family in Bombay.  She and Jim are starting over and for all her struggles to figure out American ways, her new place and household, and being a wife, she is excited to be with Jim.  Jim has been teaching her the art of detection he learned first from his beloved Sherlock Holmes books and now his own experience studying and applying detecting skills while working for the Dupree Agency.

This is good because Diana must put her newfound knowledge to the test finding her own husband in Chicago where he was last known to be investigating a murder down on the docks.

Diana learns that behind the exciting and pretty façade of the fair, there is a dark side to wealth and progress.  Rough unions, ruthless bosses, and anarchists who want to make their mark at the fair.  Diana and Jim must follow a shadowy, path to not just a killer, but a tangled web of nefarious people to not just save other lives, but their own.

The author painted a full, rich and colorful picture of life in 1893 Chicago and America.  After the Civil War, the peace came at painful cost and still smolders in some hearts. Then there are the relatively unregulated big businessmen driving the industrial era with little notice or care for the workers who live on pittance and are put in dangerous situations that they have to accept if they want to provide any form of food and shelter to their families.  Unions are rising to counter this and the clash with the bosses is another brutal war.  Add to this, the influx of immigrants from all over the world looking for new opportunities and sometimes only finding more of what they left behind.

Diana was reared in a relatively sheltered environment, but she charges into the lower levels of Chicago to find Jim.  She meets many colorful characters in the process. For those wondering, yes, the pair do eventually join up and work the case, sharing the narration. Captain Jim appreciates his wife and respects her intelligence and abilities, but Diana’s fearless decision to involve herself had Jim struggling to not put her on the first train east and out of danger. I didn’t expect Diana to have such a strong role in the book, but welcomed getting to know her as an equal narrator with Jim.

The mystery was complicated by many characters and many motives. Learning what was going on and who was involved was as big a mystery as the murders, which only got solved when Jim and Diana worked out what was happening in the bigger picture. There was wonderful heart-stopping action at times for both of them.

All in all, it was a solid follow up entry in the series and I sincerely hope there are more mysteries for Jim and Diana to tackle. Historical mystery lovers sit up and take notice.

Peril at the Exposition by Nev March

Amazon | Audible