Indira Gandhi, the Iron Lady

This post originally appeared on Murder Is Everywhere. Can a woman become a successful president? The mission was attempted just once before in the United States, with Hillary Clinton at the top of the Democratic ticket. Although Hillary won the popular vote, she didn’t win enough electoral college votes and ultimately lost the election to Donald … Read more

My Third Act

This post originally appeared on Murder Is Everywhere.  “I don’t want to talk about age.” A smart, accomplished, and elegant woman friend said this to me recently. I still do not know her age and am not going to ask her again. I suspect that this lovely person believes she’d be treated differently if people knew; … Read more

When A Bridge Falls

This post originally appeared on Murder Is Everywhere. Like so many Baltimoreans, I spent yesterday on the phone telling friends and relatives that I was alive. No, I hadn’t been anywhere near the Francis Scott Key Bridge early Tuesday morning. But I was following the news from before sunrise, because my email carried an emergency bulletin … Read more

The Super Bowl of Books

This post originally appeared on Murder Is Everywhere. I write this during my last few hours in the March sunshine of Arizona. How lucky I feel to have had a mystery gathering again during a very drab time of the year in Baltimore. I arrived on March 8 as a guest at the Tucson Festival of … Read more

Eating My Way Through Kerala, Half-Cup Portions Only

This post originally appeared on Murder Is Everywhere. Friends, I am back in India. It turned out that my wonderful October-November visit to India was not fulfilling enough. During that two-week journey, I’d gathered the information to finish one Perveen mystery; but now I was itching to learn more about Kerala for a subsequent book. … Read more

Marine Driven

This post originally appeared on Murder Is Everywhere. It was just 4:30 in the morning when my husband Tony and I arrived in Mumbai on a middle-of-the-night flight from Kochi. I was tired, but not too tired to notice that Mumbai’s domestic terminal had really spiffed up its décor, restrooms and shops. It was easy to … Read more