A crime writer gone missing, a cosy sleuthing trip to Bannerghatta, post-war letters of advice, a haunted restaurant in rural Bengal, and academic hauntings at New England colleges — this month’s lineup of popular fiction from around the world has a little bit of everything. A mix of pace, wit, heart, and just enough darkness to keep you turning the pages.

The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer | Ragnar Jónasson

(Penguin; ₹899)

Jónasson began translating Agatha Christie into Icelandic at 17 — he’s done 14 of her novels since — and you can feel that affection for the Golden Age here. When a famous crime writer vanishes on the eve of her latest release, a small-town bookseller finds himself in the middle of the search. It’s part homage, part puzzle-box, with a few sly winks at the publishing world. Crisp, witty, and full of satisfying twists, it’s the sort of book you want to start again the moment you finish.

Into the Leopard’s Den | Harini Nagendra

(Hachette India; ₹499)

Nagendra is an ecologist and professor, and it shows — her fiction is steeped in place and detail. This outing in the Bangalore Detectives Club Mystery series takes Inspector Gowda and amateur detective Kaveri Murthy into the forests of Bannerghatta National Park, investigating the death of a wildlife activist. The backdrop is rich with the realities of human-wildlife conflict, while the mystery itself is warm yet sharply observant. A cosy read, but one with claws.

Dear Miss Lake | A.J. Pearce

(Picador; ₹699)

Pearce’s historical fiction series The Emmy Lake Chronicles began with her picking up a 1939 women’s magazine at a vintage fair for £1 — and finding an agony aunt page that became the spark for the books. In this post-war chapter (the fourth instalment), the Blitz is over but rationing and grief remain. Emmy, now a magazine columnist, must navigate the everyday uncertainties of a country remaking itself. Pearce’s touch is light but sure: the humour lands, the heartache is real, and the optimism feels hard-won.

Tagore Never Ate Here | Mohammad Nazim Uddin, trs V. Ramaswamy

(HarperCollins India; ₹399)

Uddin plates magical realism like a tasting menu — one course, one clue, one chill. The pull here isn’t plot machinations so much as texture: spice, smoke, silence. Mysterious restaurant owner Mushkan Zubeiri is less a character than a gravitational field, while detective Noore Chhafa orbits, singed. A Bengali bestseller (Rabindranath Ekhane Kokhono Khete Asenni), it even spun off a Srijit Mukherji web series — fitting for a book that feels staged in shadow and steam. 

The Bewitching | Silvia Moreno-Garcia

(Hachette; ₹799)

Think witches as chilling predators, not pop-culture mascots. Between a haunted campus, a 1930s horror author, and a 1908 farmhouse in Mexico, Moreno-Garcia spins a gothic current that never lets you stand still. She studied at Endicott College — fictionalised here as Stoneridge — and the image of a colonial graveyard tucked behind a shopping lot near campus became the seed for this book’s eerie core. Reading it can feel like catching movement just at the corner of your vision.

The writer is an independent journalist, editor, and literary curator.

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Published – August 29, 2025 06:00 am IST