Reading lists/Weddings
What makes a wedding a good setting for a mystery?
A wedding hands a mystery writer a closed community with a guest list, so the suspects are already named and seated. It runs on a schedule, so the arguments happen in public and on time. And everyone at it watched a different part of the same evening.
A Punjabi wedding stretches that across most of a week, which is why I wrote one. Four of the books below put the wedding itself at the centre. The rest swap it for a party, a storm or a street. Each line says which.
Mysteries set at the wedding itself
Four books where the wedding is the plot rather than the backdrop. It is a shorter shelf than the roundups suggest.
The Guest List
Lucy Foley, 2020
A three-day wedding on a small island off the coast of Ireland, told in turn by the guests, with a body by the end of the reception.
You’re Invited
Amanda Jayatissa, 2022
A bride disappears the night of a society wedding in Colombo, narrated by the former best friend who was not supposed to come.
The Plus One
S.C. Lalli, 2024
A destination wedding between two wealthy Indian-American families, told by a guest who has her own reason for being there.
One of the Girls
Lucy Clarke, 2022
A bachelorette weekend on a Greek island. Six friends, no way off it, and one of them does not come home.
Mysteries set at Indian and Sikh weddings
Three, and one of them is mine. Two of the three are also on the list above.
You’re Invited
Amanda Jayatissa, 2022
A Sri Lankan wedding rather than an Indian one, and a bride who disappears from it.
The Plus One
S.C. Lalli, 2024
Two Indian-American families, one destination wedding, and a death the families would rather deal with privately.
500 Steps Down
Tej Arora
Mine, so take it with salt. A Sikh Punjabi wedding week in Surrey, British Columbia. The Paath on Sunday, the maiyaan and jaggo on Friday, the Anand Karaj on Saturday morning, and a bride who leaves her own reception that night.
The same crowd, a different occasion
Same machinery, other events. A gathering nobody can leave, and witnesses who each saw one corner of it.
The Night of the Storm
Nishita Parekh, 2024
A hurricane traps an extended Indian-American family in one house in Houston, and one of them is killed before it passes.
The Party
Robyn Harding, 2017
A sixteenth birthday sleepover in an affluent household ends in an accident, and the families spend the next year lying about it.
Everyone Here Is Lying
Shari Lapena, 2023
A nine-year-old girl disappears from a quiet street, and every household on it is holding something back.
Local Woman Missing
Mary Kubica, 2021
A woman and her daughter vanish from a quiet American suburb, and the case reopens years later when the daughter is found.
What Happened to Nina?
Dervla McTiernan, 2024
A young woman does not come home from a weekend away, and her boyfriend and her family give two accounts of it that cannot both be true.
The one I wrote
Forthcoming. Publication date to be announced. The mailing list gets one email on the day it is available, with the links on it.
Next: books like 500 Steps Down and the other reading lists.