27 books like Rei Shimura Mysteries

Bombay-born Indo-American Thrity Umrigar tells the story of Anton, a neglected biracial boy adopted into a white family. Umrigar stretches past boundaries of race, class, and gender to bring us a tale of moral choices made from power, helplessness, or the neighborhood we live in – and the uncomfortable truths that ensue. I am always impressed by Umrigar’s transparent prose that allows her story and characters to shine through, but even more so in this novel where her characters are not brown but black or white. 

In 1984, a 15-year old Indo-Canadian Maya travels with her father to India to consign her mother's ashes to the Ganges. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated the very day they arrive and Delhi descends into state-sponsored carnage as Sikh men and women are held collectively responsible. Separated from her father, Maya has to find her way home. This novel in verse is by Canadian writing across ethnic and religious lines. As a Sikh, I am familiar with details of the pogrom. Instead of applying the usual Western label of “senseless violence” Ostlere sensitively explores the impact on two ordinary young people.

The cross-cultural stories in this anthology are painful, funny, and heartbreaking. You’ll find famous and little-known writers exploring migration, immigration, othering, and otherness. We know these problems, but sometimes stories help us imagine alternate ways of solving them, making connections we can build from our common humanity.

This Trinidadian writer crosses religious, ethnic, and gender lines to show us the history of slavery in Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, and Guyana. Adam Avatar reincarnates in different centuries and continents as an Amerindian, a Spanish conquistador, a Portuguese slaver, a Yoruba slave, a female pirate, and a female stick fighter in nineteenth-century Trinidad. To tell his engrossing story, Baldeosingh writes in several historical Englishes, crossing language boundaries, demonstrating how language has changed over time. Along the way, I learned about the different phases of slavery, from the view of the slavers and enslaved. The story invites comparison to indenture, apartheid, and Jim Crow. It was a difficult read, horrific at times. But so was slavery.  

A Murder at Malabar Hill is a murder mystery that offers a fascinating insight into Indian culture in the 1920s.

The story takes place in Bombay, where the character of Perveen Mistry is the city's first female lawyer. The cultural and social challenges she faces as a woman in a male-dominated profession are woven into the story, as well as the complexities of India's caste system.

Through Perveen's interactions with her clients, we learn about the intricacies of Islamic and Hindu marriage laws, the importance of family honour, and the difficulties faced by women in traditional Indian society. I found this book fascinating, and with the wonderful descriptions of food, clothing, and architecture, felt transported to the streets of Bombay.

This was one of the first books I read in which the older women were not just the main characters but were the kick-butt heroes of the day.

I read it while in the middle of a messy draft of my own book and felt inspired to stop diluting the age-related experience of my own main character.

Everything about this book steals my heart, from Chloe's tenderness with horses to the Diné (Navajo) children who don't have enough books at their school.

But let me back up and tell you that Chloe is pregnant with Hank's child. She shouldn't be riding horses at all, but the call is too strong. Hank's a good guy who can't find professor work in Arizona, ends up teaching the Diné children, and finds he loves them more than working at a university.

It should be a happy ending between Hank and Chloe and the upcoming baby, except the horse belongs to an artist named Junior Whitebear, who returns to town and forms an instant, overpowering connection with Chloe. Mapson writes so well that she makes me ache.

Three things landed this book on my list.

First, I love the ol’ book-within-a-book mystery trope, and this is probably the finest example I’ve encountered. Again, an editor reads her dead author’s book for clues, and I got to experience that in real-time with her. Second, the central clue around which the story revolves—the dead author’s note explaining why he ostensibly committed suicide—and its role in resolving the mystery was one of the most original formulations I can remember in recent years. It was nicely done. Finally, the story within the story hearkens back to the Golden Age of detective fiction, an era for which I have a soft spot (as a glance at the amount of Agatha Christie on my bookshelves will attest).

Since finishing it, I’ve recommended this book to a half-dozen people and have yet to have somebody tell me later that they weren’t happy with the… show more.

What if you wanted to practice law in India in 1922?

Women weren't allowed in court, but Perveen Mistry becomes a solicitor instead, working behind the scenes on wills and estate files. Perveen's gender becomes an asset when she can speak to women in purdah, a practice where women seclude themselves from men in some Muslim or Hindu communities.

I liked the first book, The Widows of Malabar Hill, but truly enjoyed The Satapur Moonstone, where Perveen heads out to the Sahyadri mountains to help a royal family after the maharaja has died and the crown prince is too young to rule.

In addition to the mystery, and learning about the history of India, I could hear the buzz of mosquitoes, the tree frogs peeping, and the hooting of owls, as well as imagine the tigers and leopards in the jungle.

I fell in love with Kate Shugak as soon as I met her on the page.

Kate's an Aleutian private investigator who lives with Mutt, her half-wolf, half-husky, on a 160-acreage homestead in Alaska. Do you know why Kate carries a scar from ear to ear? Do you know why Kate and Mutt's nearest other neighbors are a grizzly bear and a moose, and why they like it that way?

If so, you probably know how everyone turns to Kate for justice and that this very first book won an Edgar Award. Maybe you, like me, have read all 26 books in this series. High five.