Harriet's twelfth novel, due out in November!

Many of you by now will be familiar with Harriet Steel’s Inspector de Silva mystery series... 

Harriet Steel

Harriet’s twelfth book in the series, Stardust in Nula, is scheduled for a November publication. It features Inspector Shanti de Silva, a middle-aged policeman who moved from the island's capital, Colombo, to the beautiful hill country in search of a more peaceful life for himself and his British wife, Jane.  The landscape is idyllic, with the vibrant green of tea plantations cloaking the hills, lush trees and flowers, and abundant wildlife. But even in the midst of this paradise, murder and mayhem are never far away, and life isn’t as quiet as Inspector de Silva had planned. 

Harriet says, “Writing a series has its challenges, and if I’m honest, I never expected this one to run to so many books. However, it’s been a delight to see how readers have taken Shanti and Jane and their world into their hearts.  Their appetite for more stories doesn’t seem to diminish, and so as long as that’s the case, I’m happy to dream up new adventures. I aim to give readers an entertaining puzzle to solve in the style of Agatha Christie without a lot of gore. "

'Stardust in Nuala' is due out in November

"As far as inspiration goes, I feel that I know my characters pretty well by now. When they start jumping about on the page,  ideas usually flow quite easily. In the case of Stardust in Nuala my starting point was the film world. I expect most people have heard of Bollywood, but it’s perhaps less well known that India had a thriving film industry long before Bollywood, with all its glitz and glamour, burst on the scene in the 1960s. It was lots of fun researching this earlier period. 

I can’t really reveal the inspiration for the novel’s subplot without giving too much away, so I’ll just say that it was sparked off by a report I saw of a very strange but comical incident that happened a few years ago in Vancouver.” 

All Harriet’s books are available via Amazon, and you can find out more by visiting her website at: https://harrietsteel.com/

Other books in The Inspector de Silva mystery series