There’s nothing quite like curling up with a warm beverage and getting lost in a cozy book. This upcoming novel about a chai-making master investigating a neighbor’s death that resembles the events of her book club’s current read is sure to warm you from the inside out. And you get to take a peek first! Enjoy this exclusive excerpt of The Masala Chai Mystery Club by MJ Soni and pick it up when it hits shelves this July.
The Masala Chai Mystery Club by MJ Soni
After retiring from her librarian position, Neeti Shah is looking forward to a peaceful life with her friends. But when her prickly neighbor, who happens to be her childhood friend, turns up dead in a similar way to a character in her most recent book club read, Neeti commits to finding the killer. With the help of her mystery-loving friends and fellow members of the Masala Chai Mystery Club, Neeti begins her investigation. But the clock is ticking, and they must unmask the killer before it’s too late.
Preorder the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon
Chapter One
The Next Morning
Neeti was deep in thought as she stood in front of the long mirror, draping her saree. It was a fashionable sage green, the color of a deliciously ripe avocado. She tucked the soft cotton fabric into the maxi underskirt, twirled it around her body once, pleated the front, another twirl, and then she flipped the dark green pallu over her left shoulder. She pinned it to the green and white cropped blouse and pulled her medium-length hair up into a low bun.
Turning slightly, she examined herself.
And then, pushing her bum out, she tried to twerk. She laughed softly at her jiggling bum. How did these young girls do it? She stared regretfully at her image.
Using her hairbrush as a mic, she announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, an amazing, an incredible, an awe- inspiring trick you have never seen before. The one and only, Neeti Shah, a human being, is transforming in front of your very eyes, from a woman — into a perfectly rectangular brick!”
Her voice and shoulders dropped. “Except, sadly, transforming into a Lego brick is the fate of many middle-aged women.”
She looked regretfully at a picture of herself and her late husband, Ravi, on the dressing table. They had been in their twenties then, at a fancy dinner they had attended soon after being married. Her blue silk saree accentuated her curves, and her hot pink blouse was as cropped as a bikini top, revealing a waist so small Victorian ladies would have swooned in disbelief.
He looked dashing, his skin enviably smooth, his dark and mischievous eyes complemented by his navy suit, one hand resting casually in the pocket of his pants, the other cupping her shoulder.
Flicking her eyebrows at his image, she said, “What do you think, Mr. Shah? We made a gorgeous couple, didn’t we?”
Sighing, she pulled a wry face, pushed back the dark mood, and headed out.
* * *
In the kitchen, she leaned over the large saucepan and waited for her masala chai water to boil. She added loose tea leaves into the churning liquid, and used the zester her niece Myra had gifted her for Mother’s Day to grate fresh ginger directly into the tea.
Her old lanyard, hanging from a magnet, clinked against the fridge door as she took the milk out. It had a picture of her from fifteen years ago. Executive Director, Retford River Public Library was printed in a large font above her picture. If she had to describe her spirit animal then, it would have been a squirrel.
She had loved being a librarian. Having access to more books than she could ever read in a lifetime, the constant traffic of people who, like her, loved and treasured books, and the best part of her job, helping people.
It was so much more than ordering, cataloging, and filing. There were times when she’d had to break up fights between teenagers, like when each Twilight book came out. Or when she had to help people search for books or articles on how to deal with cancer, or domestic violence, or their grief at losing a loved one. There were homeless people who insisted on bathing in the restrooms. A poor boy who spent every free moment in the library who once told her, “I come here to escape. We’re too poor to buy books, and I’m bored, it drives me crazy. I don’t want to become an addict like my brother.” And there was a cat lover who brought in a litter of newborn kittens and “freed” them to roam the library. And a young man who told her he had written ten thousand love poems to his ex-girlfriend, who then took out a restraining order against him. And yet another who brandished a knife in the lobby and Neeti had to talk him into safely handing it to her.
She stroked the laminated card with her forefinger, and the melancholy mood reared its ugly head again. This ID had been a symbol of her identity for so long she felt adrift without it.
She was no longer a librarian.
What was she, then?
The reality loomed in front of her like a gaping hole of nothingness.
“Oh, stop. You’re not defined by a job, and definitely not by that lanyard noose around your neck,” Peggy had snorted a few days ago. “You’re Neeti Shah, librarian with a knack for finding anything, mom to two fantastic kids, nani to three amazing, if a bit rowdy, grandkids, and my best friend, after Lawrence, of course. You should enjoy the break, then take up knitting or flower arranging and go to art classes like everyone else. Be normal, for heaven’s sake.”
“Knitting’s not for me, it takes too long to finish anything,” Neeti had said. “You know, Peggy, I used to be so . . . so strong, resilient, it was my superpower. But with Ravi gone, and my kids and grandkids on the West Coast, and now this, I don’t know who I am anymore. It’s like my road’s come to an end, my life is over. But I’m not ready for it to be over. It’s embarrassing to be such a cliché, but I really wouldn’t know what to say if someone asked me what I do.”
“Well, you could always tell them you make the best masala chai in the world. And don’t forget to tell them about your amazing appetizers.”
“But that’s not an identity, is it?”
Neeti poured milk liberally into the pot, stopping when the chai was the color of honey, then she leaned over the tea and stirred it with a long spoon.
She was indeed in the midst of an existential crisis, but at her age it was no longer “Where is my life going?” but “Where has my life gone?”
She’d given a fifth of her working life to the Retford River Public Library, and the new board had found it cheaper to replace her with a shiny new college graduate at a third of her pay.
Like those scented doggy poop bags, they’d tried to make her firing smell nice by calling it an “early retirement.”
“Early retirement, pah!” she said out loud to the tea. The crisis had caused a range of emotions to tangle within her. Anger, disappointment, fear, bitterness all flooded her at the most awkward moments, like a menopausal hot flash of perfect-storm emotions. She felt as if she was in a waiting room, like at the dentist, except it was God’s waiting room, with the same crappy golfing magazines, anticipating the dreaded call to enter the holy gates.
Staring absentmindedly into the liquid, she was startled out of her reverie by a pair of arms snaking around her waist from behind.
Preorder this cozy mystery today!
MJ Soni’s short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Akashic Books, and Masthead: Best New England Crime Stories. She penned her memoir, Defying Apartheid, which captures her experiences as a young activist in South Africa, after a writing class at her local community center.
A lifelong fan of Agatha Christie, she now draws upon her love of the culture and cuisine of her diverse Indian, African, and American background to write heartwarming murder mysteries set largely in coastal New England.
She’s a recipient of the Leon B. Burstein/MWA-NY Scholarship and a runner-up to the Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award, a Pitch Wars mentee and mentor, and a member of Crime Writers of Color, Sisters in Crime National, and Sisters in Crime–CT.
Leave A Comment