Death In The Air by Ram Murali

 

Death in The Air by Ram Murali.

Published 20th June 2024 by Atlantic Books.

From the cover of the book:

Welcome to Samsara, a world-class spa nestled in the Indian Himalayas where all your wishes are only a gilded notecard away. Ro Krishna has just checked in. With his rakish charm, Oxford education, and perfect hair, he had it all - well, until he left his job under mysterious circumstances. It was super hectic, and Ro decides it's time for some much-needed R&R. At Samsara, he's free to explore the innumerable yoga classes, wellness treatments and guided-meditation sessions on offer alongside the rest of the exclusive hotel's guests.

Until one of the guests - gorgeous, charismatic, well-connected, like most of them - is found dead. As everyone scrambles to figure out what happened, Ro is pulled into an investigation that endangers them all and threatens to spiral beyond the hotel walls. Because it turns out it's not just heiresses and Bollywood stars-to-be that have checked in: cocktail hour is over, and death is on the prowl...

***********

Ro Krishna finds himself with some time on his hands when a troubling work situation results in an unexpected windfall. Without the need to look for work for the foreseeable future, and with the mysterious requirement to be elsewhere while a murky revenge plot is underway, Ro heads for the exclusive spa of Samsara in the Indian Himalayas. Ro's wealth, family background, and highly educated ways have given him all the charm he needs to fit in at Samsara - not to mention his good looks and perfect hair. He plans to while away his time relaxing, meditating and making the best of all the treatments on offer, but things do not go quite to plan. 

When one of the young and beautiful guests is brutally murdered, Ro finds himself co-opted to be part of an eclectic group tasked with discretely looking into the circumstances surrounding the killing. Suddenly there is an undercurrent of danger at the hotel, and the suspicion of dark deeds lies heavily on guests and staff alike. Can Ro and his sleuthing partners get to the bottom of what is going on at the resort before death comes calling again...?

Death in the Air is one of the most unusual murder mysteries I have read in a very long time. I was highly intrigued by its description as The White Lotus meets Knives Out meets Crazy Rich Asians, wondering quite how all of these storylines would fit together in a single novel, but debut novelist Ram Murali proves to have picked his inspirational elements rather well. 

The most impressive ingredient in this literary mix is the backdrop of an exclusive spa (think The White Lotus), which oozes the kind of luxury only the very rich can afford. There is something deeply unsettling about this remote location high in the Himalayas, and Murali does an excellent job of wielding weather and landscape to increase the atmosphere of menace - despite the opulence of the surroundings. Layered onto this setting, he then adds a murder mystery that delves into delicious themes of money, class, and revenge, pulled straight from classic crime stories, but given the modern twist that characterises the recent resurgence of this kind of tale in film and TV (like Knives Out). Then add the unconventional cherry on top - the characters that run amok in setting and plot to have a gossipy, tongue-in-cheek ball with the world of the super rich, and uber shady (hello, Crazy Rich Asians).

For the most part, the disparate elements work nicely, catching you up in the story, and providing you with many chuckles of the pitch black kind. The characters are generally unlikeable, and sometimes inconsistent, but this adds to the satirical fun, highlighting their hypocrisy. There is a lovely dynamic between the sleuths of the story, and I very much enjoyed the way Murali contrasts and compares the lives of the guests with staff - particularly in the way this adds to the heavier storylines around Partition and ancestry.

There are occasions when the novel loses focus, mostly around spiritual aspects of the treatments Ro undergoes; a bizarre (if comic) thread about a prophetic pendant; a weird obsession with jewellery; and the use of phrases in the narrative that do not scan well (or make sense). This all distracts from the flow of the central crime plot and the intriguing revenge sub-plot of Ro's, which is seeded in a Gatsby-esque beginning. I would have liked to have seen a lot more time given to this sub-plot which almost exclusively happens in the wings. There is also a persistent feeling that there is an elusive in-joke you are not quite grasping, which a tighter, faster flowing story would resolve.  

All in all, this has the bones of a promising debut novel, with shades of meaning around the title. I really enjoyed the left-of-field spin on the traditional murder mystery too. I await Murali's next novel with interest.

Death in the Air is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Atlantic Books for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to FMcM Associates for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Ram Murali was born in New York CIty. He began his career as a lawyer in London and Paris, then worked for many years in film and television development, production, and distribution. DEATH IN THE AIR is his first novel.