Ragtime in Simla

CRIME & MYSTERY FICTION. Simla 1922: The summer capital of the British Raj is fizzing with the energy of the jazz age. Commander Joe Sandilands is looking forward to spending a month here in the cool of the Himalayan hills as the guest of Sir George Jardine, the Governor of Bengal.

When Joe's travelling companion, a Russian opera singer, is shot dead at his side in the back of the Governor's car on the road up to Simla, he finds himself plunged into a murder investigation. Confronted by the mystery of an identical unsolved killing a year before, Joe realizes that Sir George's hospitality comes at a price.

Behind the sparkling facade of social life in Simla he finds a trail of murder, vice and blackmail. Someone in this close-knit community has a secret and the nearer Joe comes to uncovering it, the nearer he comes to his own death.