Checking in from Spain.

The first photo was taken at the Elkar bookstore in Bilbao, with my friend, the Basque cultural ministry representative, me, and my Spanish publisher’s publicist. You can see the new Spanish editions in the second photo.

-Cara

Hello, from Paris! A couple of photos for you: The first is a copy of the French edition of Murder in the Marais, found in the bookstore “Comme n Roman.” Below is a view from my street in Paris.

-Cara

My book group, a bunch of smart, traveled woman with eclectic tastes wanted to read a book set in India. We read all kinds of books; classics, contemporary and crime, our only rule is FICTION. Monica who’s going to India in December offered her house, an Indian meal to sweeten the prospects so I thought of Shilpa Agarwal, a fellow SOHO author, who I met at the LATimes Festival of Books when we signed together at the LA Mystery Bookstore booth. Shilpa agreed to visit our book group via Skype video chat and talk with us. Despite some technical glitches involving 3 laptops, 2 cell phones and most of us being technically impaired we managed to see Shilpa on tokbox, a Skype like affair, and ask her questions. Too bad we couldn’t figure out how she could see us…but that aside we were 12 eager women with questions. My book group was thrilled and loved communication with an author - we’ve done this once before with Magdalen Nabb, another SOHO author, and a friend to me, who wrote the wonderful mysteries set in Florence. Sadly, Magdalen has passed but she communicated with our book group a week before she left us.

Shilpa had just put her young children to bed and graciously gave us a big chunk of her evening so a big thank you Shilpa.
Everyone said how much it meant to us that she took the time and shared her experiences and inspiration for writing Haunting Bombay, a work that took ten years. So here’s one of our many questions and Shilpa’s answer.

Q-Haunting Bombay pulled us in from the beginning, it’s so evocative, rich in detail and into a world that’s probably vanished or significantly changed. Why did you set the story in 1960’s India?

Shilpa- My parents spent their youth in Bombay (now Mumbai) in the 60’s and I grew up hearing the stories, the tales and how life was in Bombay. I wanted to explore and illuminate this era, 13 years after Partition in India, and see the progress of Nehru’s dream of building a free India. The bungalow, where the family lives represents a microcosm of India likening it to a 13 year old, like Pinky in the story, going to adult hood ie from British colonialism and the Raj to an independent country, the past moving to the future. Maji, the matriarch, in the story holds this family together and their secrets. She’s based on my own great grandmother and many of the experiences come from own grandparents exodus from present day Pakistan into India. The danger, hardships and finding refuge in a place but still outsiders. A theme in my book is the wanting to belong, how desires, even in a split second, become a choice and create a reality that you live with all your life.

“We recommended Shilpa’s book especially if you’re going to India.”

She told us she’s working on her next book and is already two years into the writing and promises it won’t take her ten years this time. Her website is http://www.shilpaagarwal.com

I met Leighton in Miami at the Bookfair. At the pool over drinks he seemed a willing victim, so together with his protagonist, Chief Inspector Mario Silva, who with his team pursue a ring of medical murderers in Buried Strangers I asked some questions from the Proust questionaire and a few I made up
Leighton, it’s not required but have you read Proust?

I confess to having tried and failed. I further confess to having a similar problem with James Joyce.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

It’s a myth. Nothing’s perfect.

What is your greatest fear?

Losing my wife.
Which living person do you most admire?

I can’t answer the question. There is no single person that I most admire.

What is the most overrated virtue?

Chastity

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Duplicity

What is your greatest extravagance?
Travel.

What is your Favorite journey?

The next one.
On what occasion do you lie?
When the truth would do more harm.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

Pass the bottle.

Now a few questions for Mario Silva
What is your most treasured possession?

The album that contains photos of my son.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Losing a child.

What is your most marked characteristic?

Integrity.

What is the quality you like most in a man?

Compassion.

What is the quality you like most in a woman?

Again, compassion.

Who are your heroes in real life?

Luiz Martins de Souza Dantas, Dorothy Stang and Chico Mendes.
What is it that you most dislike?

Injustice.

How would you like to die?

Quickly, in full command of my faculties and together with my wife.

For both of you - What is your motto?

Dominus pascit me nihil mihi deerit.

Cara here and I thought I’d ask James Benn and his protagonist, Billy Boyle, questions from the Proust questionaire… and a few I made up!

Jim, its not required but have you read Proust?

Certainly. “In Search of Lost Time” is a requirement for any writer. I re-read it every year, in the original French, of course.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

On vacation with my wife, just the two of us, researching the setting for my next book. A perfect combination of love, sights, good food and wine.

What is you greatest fear?

That there’s not enough time. For it all.

Which living person do you most admire?

Joe Blow. He gets up every morning and gets it done. No whining, no celebrity. Anyone who has done anything virtuous and whose name is known probably is a narcissist.

What is the most overrated virtue?

Righteousness.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Righteous self-satisfaction.

What is your greatest extravagance?

The expenditure of vast quantities of time spent in writing, in addition to holding down a full-time day job. It’s ridiculous.

What is your Favourite journey?

Coming home.

On what occasion do you lie?

Anytime I am asked if I have read Proust. You gotta be kidding.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

Just…almost…any sort of qualifier that serves as an unintended pause while my brain catches up with my fingers. I just have no idea.

Now a few questiona for Billy Boyle

What is your most treasured possession, Billy?

My dad’s .38 Police Special. He gave it to me when I made Detective.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

A crime scene, especially in the victim’s home. A body surrounded by all the valued possessions of a life is a terrible, sad sight.

What is your most marked characteristic?

What, are you one of those Freud nut-jobs? Mind your own business.

What is the quality you like most in a man?

A stand up guy. Someone you can count on to keep their word and watch your back. A guy who buys the first round.

What is the quality you like most in a woman?

Well, she’s gotta be a looker, but she’s gotta have brains too. In my family, it would help if she was Irish, but I’ve gone and screwed that one up. I had to go and fall for an English gal. She’s solid in the looks and brains department, and she can take care of herself, too. But she’s a Brit. My Dad isn’t going to see this in Boston, is he?

Who are your heroes in real life?

Anyone who takes it on the chin for what they believe. Michael Collins, for one. Not that Dad and Uncle Dan were on his side when it came to the civil war, but you had to admire him.

What is it that you most dislike?

Being away from home and family. Not knowing how long this war is going to last, and who’s going to be left alive at the end of it. I’ve made a lot of good friends along the way, and I’d hate to lose any more of them. Don’t ask me any more depressing questions, okay? Life is hard enough.

How would you like to die?

Jeez, I just told you! At home, in Boston, after watching the Saint Patrick’s Day parade with my great-grandchildren.

For both of you - What is your motto?

“Never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
-Winston Churchill, 1941.

In all things, extraordinarily good advice.

Thanks Billy and no, your Dad won’t see this. Jim, I’m sending you A Remembrance of Things Past for Christmas.

-Cara