Under the Eye of Kali (Five Star Mystery Series)

In the middle of the tourist season in tropical South India, four American women meet over breakfast at Hotel Delite. Two of the Americans, Jean and Marge, are nurses traveling together; Emily is traveling with friends and Candy is traveling alone. Before the women have even spent twenty-four hours at the tropical resort, however, one is deathly ill and another is missing. Anita Ray, who helps her aunt manage the hotel, can find no cause for the first woman's sudden bad turn, and a search of the area turns up nothing more than a fragment of a sweater the second woman was last seen wearing. One is in a coma and the other has simply vanished. While Anita continues to search for the missing woman, she must also contend with a man shadowing her and a suspicious series of entries in the hotel ledger -- payments to a mysterious employee she has never seen. When Anita is later attacked by an unknown man, two of the least likely helpers come to her aid, offering a terrifyingly simple solution. For all their beauty and lushness, the tropics can have unexpected effects on newcomers, some of them permanent. This story opens up a little-known world of life behind the scenes in an exotic setting. Susan Oleksiw is the author of the Mellingham series featuring Chief of Police Joe Silva, who was introduced in Murder in Mellingham (1993). Oleksiw introduced Anita Ray, an Indian-American photographer, in a series of short stories, including "A Murder Made in India" (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, 2003). Oleksiw is a co-founder of Level Best Books, which publishes anthologies of crime fiction by New England writers.