Praying Mantis

by RV Raman

Overview

A thrilling, cozy locked-room holiday mystery from the author of A Will to Kill.

When a guest mysteriously dies at a boutique hotel in the Himalayan foothills, Detective Harith Athreya must find the murderer before they strike again.

ISOLATION

The idyllic Peter Dann Castle is a picture of tranquility as summer blooms in the Himalayan foothills. The heritage hotel has a reputation of being blessed – whatever happens here is said to happen for the good. Detective Harith Athreya is taking a well-earned break, but his holiday is cut short when mysterious bloody handprints appear on the walls around the resort, and he determines to find their origin.

INCRIMINATION

When a guest – Mrinal – falls to her death, the hotelier casts suspicion on five young people who checked in at the same time as the victim but who all claim not to know her - or each other. An angel investor, an interior designer, a popular singer, a religious girl and a freelancer. Would such a group really be plotting something nefarious?

INTRIGUE

Does one of these guests have something to do with the tragedy? Evidence and lies quickly pile up, and it becomes apparent that all the five guests did know Mrinal despite their claims to the contrary. Will Athreya be able to unmask the killer before the hotel claims another victim? Harith Athreya must get to the bottom of the case before the murderer strikes again...

This locked-room holiday mystery is the third book in R V Raman’s acclaimed Harith Athreya series, a smash hit that has been optioned for film in India and whose masterfully fast-paced plots continue to enthrall mystery fans worldwide.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781782279389
Publisher:	Steerforth Press
Publication date:	06/16/2026
Series:	A Harith Athreya Mystery
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.06(w) x 7.81(h) x (d)

About the Author

Following a corporate career spanning three decades and four continents, RV Raman now lectures on management, mentors young entrepreneurs, serves as an independent director on company boards, and writes. A Will to Kill is the first novel in the Harith Athreya series, with four subsequent novels in the series also available from Pushkin Vertigo.

Read an Excerpt

The old building stood well back from the street. Built at a time when land was less precious, the owners had left generous space all around the house. The upper floor of the decades- old structure comprised a single flat where the owners lived. The ground floor was divided into two halves, both of which had been rented out. A shop occupied the front, street-facing half, while a young couple with a baby lived in the rear. Both floors had low ceilings, and the traditional wooden windows were small and not particularly conducive to good ventilation. Dusk had fallen and a murky darkness shrouded the entire street and beyond. Low clouds, typical of the season, hung overhead oppressively. The area was in the midst of another prolonged power outage. Dim yellow light from lamps and can- dles flickered through most windows. The few houses that had battery-operated emergency lamps, or still had a charge in their inverter batteries, enjoyed the luxury of a brighter white light. The dark street was deserted, but the ominous roar of riot- ing was not far away. One of the mobs that had been sweeping through the district, looting, breaking and burning as they went, had reached the main road at the end of the street. The acrid smell of smoke hung in the still air. Fear was palpable on both sides of locked doors.
Silent and lightless, the ground floor shop had long since been locked and shuttered. Its doors and wooden windows were shut fast against potential rioters. The first streams of smoke escaping from under the doors and through the gaps between warped windows went unnoticed in the murky darkness. Had anyone been watching, the yellow light from the fire within might have been taken for lamplight. Only when the surging flames burst out through the windows did the neighbourhood realize that something was amiss.
But it was too late by then.
Cans, buckets and drums of paint, thinner and other com- bustible material that were stored in the shop had caught fire. It did not have a permit to stock flammable material. Yet, the storage area was full of it. As were the spaces under the stair- case that led to the upper floor.
Once these illegally stowed incendiaries caught fire, all hope was lost for the middle-aged couple on the upper floor. With an inferno roaring up the stairwell and with all the win- dows barred, there was no escape.
The tenants in the rear part of the ground floor were luckier, even though they were singed and burnt by the roaring flames. But their one-year-old baby was not lucky enough. Smoke got into her little lungs as they made a dash through the leaping flames. She would succumb within forty-eight hours.
As a crowd began gathering on the street, a girl rushed out of the apartment block opposite the burning house.
‘Ma!’ she screamed as she ran headlong across the street. ‘Baba!’
The roaring flames, fuelled by the incendiaries, singed her hair and scalded her skin as she darted towards the blazing building. She rocked back and screamed again, her eyes wide and wild.
‘Ma! Baba!’
A younger boy—her brother—stared horrified and mute as the girl made another attempt to approach the burning house. A neighbour threw his arms around her waist and held her back.
‘There’s nothing you can do!’ he yelled in Bengali. ‘You’ll only kill yourself!’
The girl’s music teacher, who lived in the apartment block, emerged from it and hugged the girl, pulling her back across the street foot by foot. Her husband took charge of the boy and they backed away from the flames.
By then, a mob had entered the street. Seeing the rioters, the neighbours fled back to their houses. The music teacher and her husband hustled the newly orphaned girl and the boy and took them away to their flat.
The flames took little time to reduce the old building to ashes as the rioters fled the scene and residents watched from afar. By the time the fire engines arrived, the destruction was complete. The two corpses they found in the charred remnants of the house were beyond recognition, but the police eventu- ally identified the bodies from the jewellery they were wearing. That day would go down as one of the blacker days in West Bengal’s history. Many shops had been looted and buildings gutted. The next week, the police listed the preliminary cause of the fire in the old, two-storey building as ‘rioting and arson’.
Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Editorial Reviews

PRAISE FOR A DIRE ISLE
 
"Raman continues to channel Agatha Christie in book two of his India-based Harith Athreya series. 
For fans of Golden Age mysteries, as well as those who love the venerated Inspector Ghote series by H.R.F. Keating."—Booklist
 
"The second novel in the Harith Athreya series firmly establishes RV Raman as an author on the rise and an impressive force in the world 
of whodunnits."—CrimeReads
 
"Enjoyable…Raman does a good job weaving in the mystery with a possibility of the supernatural, all while juggling a large cast of characters. Armchair travelers and fans of traditional mysteries should take note.”—Publishers Weekly
 
 
PRAISE FOR A WILL TO KILL
 
“A modern-day take on the classic locked-room murder mystery, transported to a remote mansion high in the hills of southern India." —The New York Times  
 
“Reminiscent of Agatha Christie mysteries, this first in the Harith Athreya series is a sure hit for readers who love a taste of foreign intrigue and a solid whodunit.” —Library Journal

"A WILL TO KILL is a slice of sheer pleasure. Bravo."—The Guardian

From the Publisher