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Summary
Summary
Enjoy another "exhilarating roller-coaster ride of unusual cases" ( Publishers Weekly ) in this second book of the Ravi PI series, featuring detective Ravi Chandra Singh and his team at the gleefully amoral, unfailingly dangerous secret agency Golden Sentinels.
When Ravi's colleagues at Golden Sentinels discover that he sees gods in moments of heightened anxiety and stress, they are surprisingly fine with it. They even encourage him to incorporate his visions into his work, especially now that the cases have become more intense, with many hidden risks at play. But their latest case--a search for a dead Russian oligarch's last will and testament--leads to more than anyone expected: a missing heir, murderous relatives, and geopolitical implications. So, when Ravi's boss sends him to Los Angeles to wait out the heat, it's almost a relief...until Ravi's past catches up to him.
In this thrilling and complex sequel to the "exciting and dynamic" (Deepak Chopra) Her Nightly Embrace , nothing is what it seems, as Ravi ends up on the run in Los Angeles with a car full of stolen guns and chased by killers as the city is surrounded by a ring of fire.
Author Notes
Adi Tantimedh has a BA in English Literature from Bennington College and an MFA in Film and Television Production from New York University. He is of Chinese-Thai descent and came of age in Singapore and London. He has written radio plays and television scripts for the BBC and screenplays for various Hollywood companies, as well as graphic novels for DC Comics and Big Head Press, and a weekly column about pop culture for BleedingCool.com. He wrote "Zinky Boys Go Underground," the first post-Cold War Russian gangster thriller, which won the BAFTA for Best Short Film in 1995 and is the author of Her Nightly Embrace, Her Beautiful Monster , and Her Fugitive Heart .
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Ravi Singh, who works for the London branch of Golden Sentinels Private Investigations and Security Agency, has the ability to see Indian gods-Ganesha, Kali, Shiva-a gift that he finds highly unsettling. His boss, however, believes that his visions actually make him a better operative, and Ravi uses them effectively in Tantimedh's outstanding sequel to 2016's Her Nightly Embrace. In the opening case, Ravi and his team seek economic justice for victims of a fraudster who created a fake company that claimed to have invented a revolutionary model of drone detector. Ravi and his colleagues, who use elaborate plots they consider "social engineering," are next employed to thwart some evil British nobles with a history of marrying wealthy spouses who have a suspicious tendency to die of some sickness. Brilliantly combining an original and offbeat concept, extremely clever plotting, and fast pacing, Tantimedh offers every indication he can carry these strengths over into future volumes. Agent: Lisa Gallagher, DeFiore and Co. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Four more adventures, not so much linked as pureed, for Ravi Chandra Singh and his mates at London's Golden Sentinels Private Investigations and Security Agency (Her Nightly Embrace, 2016).Ravi sees gods. Shiva, Kali, Vishnu, Ganeshathey're as close to him as members of his cheerfully dysfunctional family, even though his friends have to take his word for their presence. Sometimes their otherworldly counsel is wise and welcome; sometimes it's a distraction from the logistical challenges of his job, which are considerable. Not so much perhaps in "The Hustle of the Gods," a curtain raiser in which Golden Sentinels, hired by the shareholders of Advance Drone Defence Technologies to get the goods on their swindling founder, Tarquin Gaskell-Bridger, wrap up the case before you've settled properly into your favorite reading chair, but a lot more in "The True Price of London Properties," which plops the gang into the middle of an inheritance slugfest between the vanished first wife and son of the late Russian oligarch Lev Sergeyevich Mayakovsky and the family of his aristocratic bride, Cecily Harkingdalea slog whose length is almost justified by its disturbingly strong finish. The plot thickens further in "Black Bag LA," in which Ravi and Julia, his colleague and lover, supposedly on a busman's holiday to assess the effectiveness of the Golden Sentinels branch in La-La Land, tag along on a routine call to retrieve an antique pistol stolen from filmmaker Gossamer Rand Ross' Hollywood palace during a party his assistant, Keith Doyle, threw in his absence and end up having kinky sex in Ross' panic room while armed militants ransack the place for a cache of much more recent and powerful weaponsa mess so complicated that it requires an even more chaotic fourth story, "The Reluctant Despot," to straighten it out, or at least explain how it got so messy. Back home, the machinations of family friend Mrs. Dhewan, the sharpie whose neighborhood food bank turns out to be just as problematic as the CIA, provides the closest thing to a common thread. Once again, Tantimedh ebulliently spins out a world in which pandemonium doesn't reign; it pours. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
The Golden Sentinels is a high-end agency composed of unusually skilled misfits well equipped to handle covert security and investigations for the elite class. Ravi Chandra Singh is a former religious scholar and teacher, whose visions of Hindu gods complicate his life. According to him, "Life is good. Well as good as it could be to do dodgy things to clean the dirty laundry of the rich and powerful, and you're hallucinating gods." This outstanding sequel to Her Nightly Embrace is a series of loosely connected cases including a search for a dead Russian oligarch's will, a missing heir, and a high-octane stint in L.A. Ravi also grapples with family issues, including dealing with his parents' sex life following his father's prostate surgery, and solving attacks on the food bank run by a family friend. -Verdict Fast-paced, inventive, idiosyncratic, and packed with screen-ready dialog, this quirky mystery is a winner and may appeal to Michael Craven aficionados. The cover features Heroes star Sendhil Ramamurthy, who is slated to play Ravi in a possible TV adaptation; a podcast is also in development.-LH © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Her Beautiful Monster ONE Pack of racists in bomber jackets called me a "fucking Paki" on the street the other day. The usual stuff about going back to where I came from. Racists never need facts or accuracy, and I wasn't going to correct them and say I was actually Hindu, of Indian ancestry, not Pakistani-Muslim, and born and raised in Parsons Green in West London. I wasn't going to break cover since I was on the job. Buddha used to say there was no need to take revenge. If you waited long enough, the bodies of your enemies would eventually float by in the river. In my case, I had Ken and Clive to beat them up for me. Two violent, trained ex-coppers built like brick shithouses against four gangly racists in tracksuits? No contest. And did I say Clive used to be in the army before he became a copper? Soldiers were taught to kill people with their thumbs, if necessary. It had been a few weeks since Ken and Clive last fed their bloodlust. "The fat one looks like a human version of a boil," Julia said. "He's like everyone's cartoon of what a British racist looks like," I said. "I didn't think that look actually existed." The blob of a man hit the ground. He wasn't getting up again for a bit. He made me think of the Millennium Dome. Two broken noses, one fractured jaw, and at least one concussion later, Ken and Clive walked back to us, happily sated. Their grins did not make me comfortable anymore. Ken and Clive didn't do it for me, of course. They just wanted any excuse to kick off and fuck someone up. It had been three weeks since they had gotten to quench their lust for violence, and these idiots fit the bill. The violence also reinforced their cover as my bodyguards. Julia squeezed my arm as we continued on our way, Ken and Clive falling in line alongside us. Mark just nodded in approval. This aggressive show of power seemed to impress our mark. Tarquin Gaskell-Bridger. I was a tycoon from Mumbai here to see his pitch for his dodgy anti-drone technology. He watched in awe at the short work my "bodyguards" made of those unfortunate dickheads. I was a prospective investor in his dodgy venture, and this was the kind of power at my command. Having Ken and Clive with me meant I was not to be fucked with. "A perfect snapshot of the dystopian Dickensian nightmare that Britain is becoming," Mark Oldham declared cheerfully. He would say that. Mark was our disillusioned poet at Golden Sentinels Private Investigations and Security Agency. He looked upon the world through a haze of marijuana smoke and saw it broken and sad, and he could only laugh and make jokes. We were here because of him, and he wouldn't have missed it for the world. Excerpted from Her Beautiful Monster by Adi Tantimedh All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
