Photographer and amateur sleuth Anita Ray makes her second
appearance in THE WRATH of SHIVA by Susan Oleksiw.
Personally, I enjoyed this series installment much more
than the first mystery, UNDER THE
EYE OF KALI although
some
of the characters who play roles in THE WRATH of SHIVA are
introduced in the earlier novel.
The mystery begins when Surya, Anita's cousin-sister
doesn't arrive as planned from her latest trip abroad.
When
Anita and her Auntie Meena, who owns the Hotel Delite that
Anita helps her run, go to what's left of the family
estate
to help out Anita's great aunt and Surya's grandmother,
Punnu Chellamma, they find much more going on than they
expected.
Gauri, one of the long-time servants is going into trances
although she blithely says she is possessed by the angry
goddess Bhagavati. Konan, the family astrologer recommends
an exorcism, a traditional custom, which serves to peak
Anita's suspicions more than it seems to help Gauri. A
brutal attack on the cook's assistant and an attack on
Anita herself fuel her determination to root out what's
happening. Many of the family sacred images have allegedly
been sent out to be cleaned of "bronze disease," but Anita
doesn't believes they have vanished for other reasons and
how does Surya's disappearance fit into this tumultuous
picture?
Much of the storyline pits tradition vs. modernity, and
Anita's upbringing mirrors this dichotomy as she lives in
India but was raised in the United States. So, she doesn't
always act as her Auntie Meena wishes. There are more
details that I can't give away as well as a larger role
played by Anita's friend, Anand, a potential love
interest.
Oleksiw does a nice job creating interesting characters
and
weaving the dialect of lifestyle of southern India into
her
story. It's quite easy to feel the sea spray, hear the
sounds of animals at night and crave hear the sea with her
characters.
On an old estate along a quiet river in South India a
family
awaits the
arrival of a granddaughter. When she fails to appear, and
doesn't even call,
the family begins to worry. Anita Ray accompanies her
Auntie
Meena to
comfort her cousin's grandmother, and while there a
maidservant falls into a
trance. The maidservant reports that Devi, the Great
Goddess
is very angry.
Even worse, the maidservant predicts that the missing
granddaughter will
never again visit the estate.
The family astrologer suggests an exorcism to cure the
maidservant, and with
this begins Anita's curiosity about the astrologer, his
associates, and the
disappearance of a number of family antiques.
The Wrath of Shiva takes the reader into a little-known
world in Kerala,
South India, an old world of sacred groves and the gods
who
guard them, of
devotees who accept divine possession and the exorcists
who
would cure them,
and of the treasures that lie scattered across the Indian
landscape and
those who would claim them
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