A MYSTERY AT LILI VILLA

A mystery that also serves as an homage to small-town life in Kerala, India.

Tam Menon treasures summers spent with extended family in the southern Indian community of Elathoor. For Tam, it’s the exact opposite of her life in Bengaluru in all of the best ways, especially since her father died. Known as Lili Villa, the family home is, among other things, “the best place in the world to play hide-and-seek.” When her aunt and uncle, both physicians, discover they’ve been robbed of jewelry, 10-year-old Tam and her cousins Arj and Mira believe they can crack the case quicker than the police. The investigation proves to be a tricky one, and the cousins discover several long-hidden secrets about the grown-ups around them in the process. The complexities of village life, Tam’s occasional temper, and Mira’s anxiety are sensitively depicted. While author Menon mainly portrays the lives of Lili Villa’s servants with compassion, several passing remarks about the “pinching fingers” of the family’s driver may leave younger readers confused and wishing the cousins would tell an adult that they felt unsafe. This is a shame, as the rambunctious kid characters and the book’s playful tone (which continues into the closing glossaries of Kerala foods and Malayalam and Hindi vocabulary) otherwise make this a sprightly, amusing read.

An energetic, somewhat disjointed amateur detective story.