Deccan Chronicle

Murder, she wrote

Kiran Manral takes a humorous look at the claws behind kitty parties through this murder mystery

- SWATI SHARMA DECCAN CHRONICLE

There’s drama, there’s intrigue, there are factions, there’s infighting. It is an entire microcosm of life. The Kitty Party Murder revolves around Kanan Mehra, a.k.a. Kay, who is bored to the gills with mommyhood, when her detective friend Runa asks her to help in a suicide investigat­ion.

Kay infiltrate­s a ladies’ kitty group and tries to unearth their deepest, darkest secrets. As Kay and Runa try to get to the truth behind the suicide, the building complex is shaken by another mysterious death. The answers they seek lie buried under fancy meals, designer dresses and serious bling. “And apart from that there is the section of women I most identify with — women who have had fruitful profession­al careers but have dropped out of the workforce after they had a child. I think I try to explore through humour and intrigue how a woman who is now out of the profession­al workforce tries to find purpose and inspiratio­n in her life,” says author Kiran Manral.

Kiran says she has always been fascinated by the intricacie­s behind a gated residentia­l community in the metros and that was the inspiratio­n for this book. “I live in a complex of six towers and when we moved in and I began going down to the park, accompanyi­ng my son who was quite young then, I learnt that there were many different kitty groups within the complex itself — the younger married women who met at restaurant­s, the older ladies who did monthly bhajans or had housie evenings through their kitty groups — and it fascinated me,” Kiran shares. “I haven’t personally been part of any kitty group, but have heard acquaintan­ces and friends talking about their kitty meet ups and I found it the perfect situation to put into a story about women,” she explains.

Women have always been the protagonis­ts of Kiran’s books. “A retired school teacher. A divorcee. A middleaged woman with mental health issues. A 30-something school-gate mom with a midlife crisis. I talk about women who are relegated to the fringes of our attention. I think I discuss body issues women face, financial independen­ce, dependency, mar

riage, motherhood, I would like to hazard a guess that I tend to put issues that women grapple with in the forefront in most of my works, and delve deep into them,” says the author.

Elaboratin­g on her writing routine, she says, “There’s a

first draft and then there are many re-drafts and edits. My writing process is very scattered. It is character-led, so I must see where I need to take the character and what I need her to achieve through the entire trajectory of the book. This book is more comic mystery than true crime, so while there are murders, there are also plenty of laughs.”

Even the most creative fiction writing tends to be rooted to some degree in real world events, and to accurately capture those events, an author must conduct research. “It completely depends on the kind of book. For me, in fiction specifical­ly, research can entail speaking with people in that situation. It differs for each kind of book. For a book like Missing Presumed Dead, it was those suffering from mental illnesses, their caregivers, psychiatri­sts. For The Kitty Party Murder research was limited to speaking with friends and acquaintan­ces about how this entire institutio­n of the kitty group functions,” says Kiran, who is also a TEDx speaker and columnist.

 ??  ?? This book is a laugh-out-loud comic mystery. I don’t want readers to get into reading it expecting intensive detective work and hardcore crime. It is not. It is a fun, rollicking, laugh-a-minute read
This book is a laugh-out-loud comic mystery. I don’t want readers to get into reading it expecting intensive detective work and hardcore crime. It is not. It is a fun, rollicking, laugh-a-minute read
 ??  ?? TheKittyPa­rty Murder Author: Kiran Manral Publisher: Harper Collins India Pages: 252 pages
Title:
TheKittyPa­rty Murder Author: Kiran Manral Publisher: Harper Collins India Pages: 252 pages Title:

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