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Review: THE SILVERSMITH'S PUZZLE by Nev March
- Sophia Rose
- May 8
- 4 min read
Updated: May 14
ABOUT THE BOOK
Captain Jim Agnihotri and Lady Diana Framji return to India as they investigate a murder amidst colonial Bombay's complex hierarchy in March's fourth mystery. In 1894 colonial India, Lady Diana's family lost their fortune in a global financial slump, but even worse, her brother Adi is accused of murder. Desperate to save him from the gallows, Captain Jim and Lady Diana rush back to Bombay. However, the traditional Parsi community finds Jim and Diana's marriage taboo and shuns them. The dying words of Adi’s business partner, a silversmith, are perplexing. As Captain Jim peels back the curtains on this man's life, he finds a trail of unpaid bills, broken promises, lies, and secrets. Why was the silversmith so frantic for gold, and where is it? What awful truth does it represent? Set in lush, late-Victorian India, Captain Jim and Diana struggle with the complexities of caste, tradition, and loyalty. Their success and their own lives may depend on Diana, who sacrificed her inheritance for love. Someone within their circle has the key to this puzzle. Can she find a way to reconnect with the tight community that threw them aside?
OPENING LINES
September 1894. My boots rapped smartly on the cobbles as I strode through the murky Liverpool dusk, worrying about the telegram stashed in my billfold. I’d soon join my wife Diana and her brother in the rooms he’d taken to await the arrival of our ship.
GUEST REVIEW BY SOPHIA ROSE
All has come full circle when Captain Jim and Lady Diana return to Victorian-Era Colonial India and all they left behind for another mystery- this time in Diana’s Parsi Zoroastrian community. Nev March caught my attention with her first book in this series, Murder in Old Bombay. She wrote period and culturally authentic backgrounds and characters as well as a cunning and adventure-laden mystery. I’ve come to anticipate each series installment ever since.
The Silversmith’s Puzzle is the fourth standalone mystery in the Captain Jim and Lady Diana Mysteries series. While the mysteries are standalone, there is a strong connection through the series regarding the characters and relationships, so they work best read in order.
Jim, half-English and half-Indian son of a lower caste woman and ex-captain of the Indian army, should have never married Diana, a Parsi from a high caste and wealthy family when it comes to pretty much everyone within her Parsi Zoroastrian community. They knew what marriage would mean, which is why they moved to America, where Jim pursued detective work. However, successfully, on occasion, with Diana’s brilliant help.
But now, caste and culture threaten to end their chances of investigating the murder of Adi’s business partner and keeping him from taking the blame for the crime. Their extended Parsi community makes life rough and outright shuns Jim and Diana, but the Framjis loyally stick by the married pair, and their irrepressible spirit is still intact. Jim does a great deal of the sleuthing alone this time around, delving into familiar haunts around Bombay. The case isn’t easy even if he had cooperation. In America and Britain, Jim was accepted as American and treated differently than in India although he is neither (not English enough for the Brits or high enough caste for the Indians).
All in all, this return to India was as taut and suspenseful on a personal level as I expected, and I fell more deeply in love with Captain Jim and Lady Diana as they faced ethnic and class hardships while helping her family. If you love authentic historical mysteries set in exotic and culturally rich locales, READ THIS SERIES.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author Nev March is the first Indian-born writer to win Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America’s Award for Best First Crime Fiction. Her debut novel, Murder in Old Bombay, was an Edgar and Anthony finalist. Nev’s books deal with issues of identity, race, and moral boundaries. Her sequel, Peril at the Exposition is set at the 1893 World’s Fair, during a time of conflict that planted the seeds of today’s red-blue political divide. In Captain Jim and Lady Diana’s third adventure, The Spanish Diplomat’s Secret, they face a strange, otherworldly foe who causes Jim to question the nature of justice. In The Silversmith’s Puzzle, (May 2025), Captain Jim and Diana race back to colonial India to rescue Diana’s beloved brother Adi, who is accused of murder. After a long career in business analysis, in 2015, Nev returned to her passion, writing fiction. She now writes and teaches fun courses on creative writing and movie analysis at Rutgers University, Osher Institute. She has been interviewed on NPR, written for magazines and edited issues of the FEZANA Journal. She also writes screenplays for TV and film. A Parsi Zoroastrian herself, she lives in New Jersey with her family. She volunteers with local nonprofit Shine and Inspire and the Zoroastrian Association of Greater New York (ZAGNY). She is President of the NY chapter board of the Mystery Writers of America. Connect with Nev via her website.
ABOUT GUEST REVIEW Sophia Rose
Sophia is a quiet, curious gal who dabbles in cooking, book reviewing, piano-playing, and gardening. Road trips and campouts, museums and monuments, restaurants, and theaters are her jam. Encouraged and supported by an incredible man and a loving family. A Northern Californian transplant to the Great Lakes region of the US. Lover of Jane Austen, baseball, cats, Scooby Doo, and chocolate. As a lifelong reader, it was inevitable that Sophia would discover book blogs and the joy of blog reviewing. In 2012, she submitted her first book review and is currently an associate reviewer. Sophia is a prolific reader and audiobook listener, which allows her to experience many wonderful books, authors, and narrators. Few genres are outside her reading tastes, but her true love is fiction, particularly history, mystery, sci-fi, and romance. Sorry, no horror...or she will run like Shaggy and Scooby.
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