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1930s: The fourth in the Inspector de Silva Mysteries
Fatal Finds in Nuala
What you need to know before your trail
It’s monsoon season in the Hill Country. One stormy night, a ghostly encounter on a lonely road leads de Silva into a case of murder, and a mystery that stretches back to Ceylon’s distant past. To uncover the truth, he will have to face death and his inner demons.
Locations
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1930s Ceylon
The series of novels by Harriet Steel nicely capture the time and place of the country – ruled by the British but with a nice melting pot of cultures, ideas and way of life.
As well as mainly being set in the small hill village, there’s a short visit to Kandy and the Gardens of Peradeniya (take care not to miss the fruit bats)
The Monsoon rains
Those monsoon rains make everything more urgent and exciting not to mention dangerous. The intricacies of the British Rule in Ceylon is loud and clear and it makes for interesting and thought-provoking reading. The landscape and people are warmly blended into to the cup with a regular sprinkling of local spice in the sense of the food and drink often teasingly and tantalizingly dropped into play. Your mouth will be watering at the mention of butter cake for example.
The country as a melting pot
“Many didn’t bother to understand what a melting pot his country was. First the Sinhalese, his own people – the true and original owners of Ceylon – then the Tamils, either coming in over the centuries in waves of invasion from South India or brought to Ceylon more recently by the British to pick the tea.”
De Silva’s wife is British and this makes for a nice cultural mix in the books:
“Wherever the British went, de Silva mused, they had the knack of recreating a little corner of England. One day, they would leave and give Ceylon back to her people but, for the moment, the tendency had a certain charm.”
Amelia Earhart’s disappearance is mentioned which also brings a nice sense of time and place to the novel.
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
I have really enjoyed the series of these books set in Ceylon so far but thought it was about time I reviewed the latest one. I mean, Harriet Steel has taken me to 1930s Ceylon a few times now and each time it’s felt like a nice escape. I don’t think you have to read them in order but there is a development in the characters of Inspector Shanti de Silva and his wife Jane.
There’s a lot of history and evocative landscapes with these stories and it was nice to speak to the author to find out that although Nuala is fictional, it is heavily inspired by Nuwara Eliya. Amelia Earhart’s disappearance is mentioned which also brings a nice sense of time and place to the novel
It’s not a nice place for the inspector at first however as his car has just broken down in the middle of the heaviest monsoon rains they’ve seen for some time. He hears a scream in the rainy atmosphere but only finds out later that a local man has gone missing. The investigation into his disappearance turns into a whole other case for the inspector and he is forced to go back into those rainforests to find out what might have happened. One discovery however leads to another and the missing man, Velu, is both part of the investigation and the investigation himself. There’s a snake in the grass – and that’s in addition to the thousands of the animal variety wriggling around in the forest for real
Is he found, what has happened to him? Those pesky monsoon rains make everything more urgent and exciting not to mention dangerous. Take this plot then and add in a heavy dose of Ceylon goodness. The intricacies of the British Rule in Ceylon is loud and clear and it makes for interesting and thought-provoking reading. The landscape and people are warmly blended into to the cup with a regular sprinkling of local spice in the sense of the food and drink often teasingly and tantalizingly dropped into play. My mouth was watering at the mention of butter cake for example. Oh and the fruit? Not so much the fruit bats though….
The author is writing a fifth novel as we speak. I can’t wait to go back to Ceylon. Oh and one last thing – read these novels whilst a good pot of tea to hand. Until I find some of that butter cake, the tea adds the taste factor to the novel’s proceedings.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Fatal Finds in Nuala
Destination : Sri Lanka, Nuwara Eliya, Nuwara Eliya, Nuala (Ceylon) Author/Guide: Harriet Steel Departure Time:1930s
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