Death in the Air

"Unexpected delights await on every page of Ram Murali’s impressive & captivating debut. Crisp as a gin & tonic & delightfully wicked, this smart, smart novel delivers a sophisticated, subversive murder mystery set in the highest stratosphere of the international idle rich. I had to force myself not to binge it in one night so I could savor it…" —Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians

The White Lotus meets Knives Out meets Crazy Rich Asians in this devilishly entertaining debut novel: both a sophisticated locked-room mystery in the tradition of Agatha Christie, & a provocative literary whodunit for the 21st century.

Ro Krishna is the American son of Indian parents, educated at the finest institutions, equally at home in London’s poshest clubs & on the squash court, but unmoored after he is dramatically forced to leave a high-profile job under mysterious circumstances. He decides it’s time to check in for some much-needed R&R at Samsara, a world-class spa for the global cosmopolitan elite nestled in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas. A person could be spiritually reborn in a place like this. Even a very rich person.

But a person—or several—could also die there. Samsara is the Sanskrit word for the karmic cycle of death & rebirth, after all. And as it turns out, the colorful cast of characters Ro meets—including a misanthropic politician; an American movie star preparing for his Bollywood crossover debut; a beautiful heiress to a family jewel fortune that barely survived Partition; and a bumbling white yogi inexplicably there to teach meditation—harbors a murderer among them. Maybe more than one.

As the death toll rises, Ro, a lawyer by training & a sleuth by circumstance, becomes embroiled in a vicious world under a gilded surface, where nothing is quite what it seems . . . including Ro himself. Death in the Air is a brilliant, teasing mystery from a remarkable new talent.