The Jasmine Murders: an Uma-jayan Mystery

When Uma moves to Manamadurai, a dismal backwater town, with her husband, Jayan, who has been posted there as the police chief, she is immediately uneasy. Despite its sleepy exterior, there have been undercurrents of communal tension and violence for years. Moreover, Jayan’s predecessor, ASP Manu, dubbed ‘a brute and a reprobate’ by the locals, met a gruesome end, and the aftershocks persist. Within days of their arrival, Uma’s worst fears come true. A man arrives at Uma and Jayan’s doorstep, holding the severed head of a woman, the jasmine in her braid till intact. This is only the beginning of what turns out to be a long chain of grisly, interlinked events that threaten to destroy Manamadurai’s peace as well as the precarious marital bliss of Uma and Jayan. Meanwhile, there’s a theft at the local zamindar’s house, and a secret long buried by the family is threatening to surface. Uma soon finds herself at the heart of the mystery, as she becomes privy to a covert network of gossip and hearsay. And over this grim tableau, a severe cyclone is brewing. As Jayan grapples with the ever-widening vortex of fear, suspicion, and criminal behaviour that the murder of the woman has set in motion, Uma joins forces with her husband and makes a startling discovery that breaks the case wide open and leads to the truth. Twisted and ingenious, The Jasmine Murders is a brilliant debut.