Debt in Anita Ray's World, by Susan Oleksiw

The world of India, both modern and traditional, offers unlimited stories--about people and places and gods. I never have to think up a story. The challenge for me is to keep up with the onslaught of ideas that billow out of an image I encounter in a museum or an article I glance at while turning the pages of a newspaper. The story at the heart of When Krishna Calls is one such idea mixing modern and traditional worlds in India.

One of the first things I learned when I arrived in India in late 1975 was that everyone below the westernized middle class was in debt. This is not the debt of student loans, or a mortgage that makes newlyweds "house poor." Nor is it the kind of debt some investors carry with the expectation that in the end they'll reap great rewards.

In traditional India, among lower-income caste groups, debt is essential to the economy. Money circulates in different ways in different strata of society, but at the lowest level, the point of debt is to keep money moving among people. Debts are repaid because no one wants to be shut out of the economy. The interest rate might be high, sometimes up to ten percent a month, but the total amounts borrowed are small and the spending can be significant in filtering through several businesses. The moneylender is usually someone well known to the borrower, the owner of a local vegetable stand or the employer of a maidservant or gardener. Whoever it is, it is rarely a bank.

And then there is the modern version of this loan business, and this is where things change. Large amounts of money change hands, much of it hidden in sham ownership deals, and all of it beyond the reach of the government. And the men who make the loans are not anything like the friendly vegetable seller. And you can guess which one has the greater influence.

This is the story behind When Krishna Calls. An employee of Hotel Delite goes missing, suspected of killing her husband, and is taken captive by a known loan shark. But he isn't interested in her. He's interested in something else.

Anita Ray, always ready to help, wants to find Nisha, someone she likes and admires. But when she finds out her Auntie Meena is involved, Anita realizes much more is on the line, perhaps more than she's ever had to deal with.

Once again, traditional and modern India clash before they blend. And Anita is pushed to the brink when she tries to rescue both Nisha and Auntie Meena.

When Krishna Calls is the last of the Anita Ray mysteries to be published by Five Star/Gale, Cengage. It will appear in August 2016. But I know there will be more adventures for Anita Ray.

Available for preorder now.

http://www.amazon.com/When-Krishna-Calls-Anita-Mystery/dp/1432832255%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAIC4DTHWMHZAANS6Q%26tag%3Dspeculativefic05%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1432832255

Which kind of writer are you? by Susan Oleksiw

In honor of Independence Day I offer a question that most of us discover the answer to after writing for several years. Some writers begin with a series and stick with it. In each installment the protagonist, professional or amateur, investigates a crime and finds the culprit. Variety is found in the recurring minor characters who populate the established setting and those who appear as part of the particular mystery. In contrast is the writer who writes a few books in one series, writes a stand-alone, switches genres, and generally wanders from form to form, series to series, exploring and discovering.

Each approach to writing has its pluses and minuses. The writer who begins and sticks with one series character brings the reader into an established and known world, with old friends reappearing in new situations and more quirks in the main support figures. These books have enormous appeal for the way they take us into lives of people who come to seem like friends. Deborah Crombie has written fourteen Duncan Kincaid mysteries (with a fifteenth in the works),  and readers eagerly await her next story and the chance to revisit "old friends" Duncan and Gemma.

In contrast Laurie King has written three series and four stand-alone novels. Most mystery readers are familiar with the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series that catapulted King to fame. The Kate Martinelli series brings readers back to California and the police procedural. The Stuyvesant and Grey books take the reader to Paris in the latest installment.

Aside from the sheer number of books these writers manage to produce, both are exploring crime and its aftermath in similar ways, going deeper into the lives of those affected as well as those investigating.

Which type of writer are you? Do you have one series and intend to stick with it over as many as twenty or thirty titles? Or do you like to explore different places and topics through different series characters as well as different genres?

Since I raised the question, I should answer it also. I began the Mellingham series with Murder in Mellingham (1993), and the sixth, Last Call for Justice, appeared in 2012. I introduced Anita Ray, an Indian American photographer living in South India at her aunt's tourist hotel, in a short story in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine in 2003. The first full-length Anita Ray mystery, Under the Eye of Kali, appeared in 2010. The third in the Anita Ray series, For the Love of Parvati, appeared in May 2014. 

I admit that I like switching back and forth and seeing similar problems from different perspectives, cultural as well as personal. I enjoy exploring the New England world, life along the coast and its special problems. But I also lived in India and have a great passion for exploring as much as I can of that world. In addition, I've written a number of short stories about a village in a rural area of New England. One story is available, Love Takes a Detour, with others to follow.

Now it's your turn. Which kind of mystery writer are you? Do you focus on one series, or do you try different things, different series characters and different genres?

To find Susan's novels, go to http://www.amazon.com/Susan-Oleksiw/e/B001JS3P7C

To learn more about Susan and her work, go to www.susanoleksiw.com