The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown by Vaseem Khan

book jacket elephant and crown graphic for Indian detective mystery fiction story
The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown by Vaseem Khan (2016)

What a wonderful mystery with fun and interesting characters full of personality — including the baby elephant, Ganesha.

Good read, though I did get a little impatient with one too many subplots. This is not the first book in the series. Maybe the author tidied previous plot twists.

Check the Goodreads link to see which is the first if you want to start at the beginning of the series.

I am pleased that there are more books in the series because this is a world I want to visit again. However, I only want to be an armchair visitor, because the small depictions of the actual reality are too distressing for me. Here in the USA we are more fortunate than many, even though fewer and fewer of us can say that. But in too many places in the world, there are too many people starving. Cruel treatment of animals exists everywhere too, to my sorrow.

In this book, the intelligence of this most unusual detective sidekick, the baby elephant, Ganesha, proves a delight. Alas, it also makes me sad for the cruelty being done to  elephants wherever they are left for however long they manage to survive.

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Time’s Up by Janey Mack

parking meter graphicTime’s Up: A Maisie MgGrane Mystery by Janey Mack (2015)

I enjoyed this as a nice read with humor and a good plot for a fun fiction read. It is the first in what will be a series focusing on the single daughter of a pair of cop/lawyer parents with five brothers, also split between cops and lawyers. At least I think five brothers, it was hard to keep track. The first handful of pages grated on me a bit because of excessive analogies, but they smoothed out and were not intrusive as I went on. The series takes place in Chicago.

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