by Gigi Pandian
“Surprise!” a group of people shouted over the music.
I stumbled backward, indeed surprised. Lane caught me. He laughed and kissed the top of my head.
Tamarind, Nadia, and Sanjay were there. Even Naveen was at my apartment. The even bigger surprise was that he was dressed casually. Well, casually for Naveen. He wore a crisply pressed dress shirt tucked into jeans.
Sanjay and Tamarind hugged me, Naveen shook my hand and congratulated me, and Nadia raised a glass my way.
“You must be Lane Peters,” Sanjay said, sticking out his hand for Lane to shake.
“Sanjay Rai,” Lane said, shaking his outstretched hand. “It’s good to officially meet you. Really good.”
As I extricated myself from a second hug from Tamarind, a knock at the door sounded.
“You invited someone else?” I asked.
“Just us,” Tamarind said. “This party isn’t rowdy enough for someone to have called the cops. That reminds me, I’d better turn the music up.”
I opened the door to find Miles. His hands were especially ink-stained today.
“Sorry,” he said, “I didn’t know you had people over.”
“You want to come in? It’s sort of a welcome home party.”
“I don’t want to intrude. I was just wondering if I left a book of poetry over here the other day.”
“I remember it. Tamarind borrowed it. She’s here. Come on in.” I closed the door behind Miles as the music went up several decibels. “Hey, Tamarind? Do you have that poetry book you borrowed?”
But the normally uninhibited Tamarind was speechless. Staring at Miles, her lips parted and a blush formed on her cheeks.
I looked from her to Miles. A shy smile formed on his face as he looked at Tamarind. Well, well, well…
“Champagne, anyone?” Sanjay said, raising his voice above the music as he popped a cork and carefully poured the champagne over a pyramid of glasses stacked on a silver platter.
“Showoff,” I said.
“Hey, I’m celebrating, too. I got my new traveling illusion to work right. Hey, why don’t we play some live music? I’ve got my sitar in my truck.”
“Looks like time alone will have to wait, Jones,” Lane whispered in my ear.
Author’s Note
On May 3, 1998, I was a 22-year-old recent college graduate backpacking through Europe. I was visiting the Louvre on a crowded Sunday afternoon—at the same time an enterprising thief brazenly stole the Corot painting Le Chemin de Sevres.
The art heist in Quicksand is completely fictional, but the response of journalists and the authorities is based on my experience trapped inside the Louvre. What I found most fascinating about the ordeal was the fact that what the press reported was far from the truth. Though the museum was locked down as soon as the theft was discovered, there were far too many museum visitors to search each of us thoroughly. It didn’t happen. And as I write this sixteen years after the theft, the painting has never been found.
On that day so many years ago, I didn’t yet know I would become a mystery novelist. But once I began writing the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery Series, I knew I would one day write about that experience.
A few additional notes on fact versus fiction in Quicksand:
As with all of my treasure hunt mysteries, the historical context is completely true, but the specific treasure itself is fictional.
The history of Mont Saint-Michel over the centuries is factual. Sadly, it’s also true that many of the Mont’s historical records were destroyed. At the start of the French Revolution, the monks moved many of their illuminated manuscripts to the town of Avranches, where the books remained safe. Historical documents were transported to a different town, Saint-Lô, where they were destroyed during WWII shortly before the war ended. Through this destruction, most of the architectural records of the Mont were lost. But some of the history can be found in the stones themselves. “Jobbers marks” are real, and a carving of 11th century stonemasons exists in the cloisters. That particular carving was spared defacing by the revolutionaries, and barebones information about these men was discovered in a manuscript and is therefore able to be recounted by the Mont’s wonderful tour guides. The secret rooms in QUICKSAND are fictional—as far as I know. But because so much of the architectural history is merely speculation, it’s entirely possible there are some secret rooms that have been forgotten.
Tipu Sultan and Robert Clive are real historical figures, but the lowly East India Company men in Quicksand are fictional.
As described in the book, Tipu Sultan, aka the Tiger of Mysore (1750-1799), was a grand figure in the south Indian kingdom of Mysore. A poet and scholar in addition to a soldier, Tipu formed alliances with the French against the English, and led armies into battle to protect his homeland. He adopted the tiger as his personal emblem, and collected and commissioned a treasure trove of tigers. Tipu’s Tiger is a real automaton that you can visit at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Any additional automatons he may have created are the products of my imagination. He died in battle, defending Mysore, when he was forty-eight.
Robert Clive, aka Clive of India (1725-1774), is one of the most celebrated figures of the British East India Company, because his military prowess enabled Britain to secure a stronghold in India. He acquired a vast array of treasures in India, the origins of which are debated. Some of his gold sank on the Doddington, and many of his treasures have been auctioned off by his descendants. It’s generally believed that he committed suicide, possibly with an overdose of opium, when he was forty-nine.
The present-day characters in Quicksand are fictional—though the rabbit Démon is based on a pet I once had.
Les Machines de L’Île is a real amusement park in Nantes, France. It’s every bit as magical as I describe it. The Grand Elephant roams the park and is a wondrous sight for children of all ages. The park’s official materials describe it as a combination of Jules Verne’s “imagined worlds,” Leonardo da Vinci’s mechanical universe, and Nantes’ industrial history. If you ever find yourself in France, I highly recommend detours to both Mont Saint-Michel and Nantes.
About the Author
USA Today bestselling author Gigi Pandian is the child of cultural anthropologists from New Mexico and the southern tip of India. After being dragged around the world during her childhood, she tried to escape her fate when she left a PhD program for art school. But adventurous academic characters wouldn’t stay out of her head. Thus was born the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery Series. The first book in the series, Artifact, was awarded a Malice Domestic Grant and named a “Best of 2012″ debut novel by Suspense Magazine. Gigi’s short fiction has been short-listed for Agatha and Macavity awards. Find her online at www.gigipandian.com.
In Case You Missed the 1st Book in the Series
ARTIFACT
Gigi Pandian
A Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery (#1)
Historian Jaya Jones discovers the secrets of a lost Indian treasure may be hidden in a Scottish legend from the days of the British Raj. But she’s not the only one on the trail…
From San Francisco to London to the Highlands of Scotland, Jaya must evade a shadowy stalker as she follows hints from the hastily scrawled note of her dead lover to a remote archaeological dig. Helping her decipher the cryptic clues are her magician best friend, a devastatingly handsome art historian with something to hide, and a charming archaeologist running for his life.
Read all about it and/or grab the book from Amazon
CLICK FOR ARTIFACT
In Case You Missed the 2nd Book in the Series
PIRATE VISHNU
Gigi Pandian
A Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery (#2)
A century-old treasure map of San Francisco’s Barbary Coast. Sacred riches from India. Two murders, one hundr
ed years apart. And a love triangle. Historian Jaya Jones has her work cut out for her.
1906. Shortly before the Great San Francisco Earthquake, Pirate Vishnu strikes the San Francisco Bay. An ancestor of Jaya’s who immigrated to the U.S. from India draws a treasure map…
Present Day. Over a century later, the cryptic treasure map remains undeciphererd. From San Francisco to the southern tip of India, Jaya pieces together her ancestor’s secrets, maneuvers a complicated love life she didn’t anticipate, and puts herself in the path of a killer to restore a revered treasure.
Read all about it and/or grab the book from Amazon
CLICK FOR PIRATE VISHNU
Be sure to check out Jaya’s prequel novella
FOOL’S GOLD featured in
OTHER PEOPLE’S BAGGAGE
Kendel Lynn, Gigi Pandian, Diane Vallere
Baggage claim can be terminal. These are the stories of what happened after three women with a knack for solving mysteries each grabbed the wrong bag.
MIDNIGHT ICE by Diane Vallere: When interior decorator Madison Night crosses the country to distance herself from a recent breakup, she learns it’s harder to escape her past than she thought, and diamonds are rarely a girl’s best friend.
SWITCH BACK by Kendel Lynn: Ballantyne Foundation director Elliott Lisbon travels to Texas after inheriting an entire town, but when she learns the benefactor was murdered, she must unlock the small town’s big secrets or she’ll never get out alive.
FOOL’S GOLD by Gigi Pandian: When a world-famous chess set is stolen from a locked room during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, historian Jaya Jones and her magician best friend must outwit actresses and alchemists to solve the baffling crime.
Read all about it and/or grab the book from Amazon
CLICK FOR OTHER PEOPLE’S BAGGAGE
Sign up for the Henery Press newsletter
and we’ll deliver the latest on new releases (including the next in this series).
CLICK TO SIGN UP
(Note: we won’t share your email address and you can unsubscribe any time.)
Henery Press Mystery Books
And finally, before you go...
Here are a few other mysteries
you might enjoy:
NUN TOO SOON
Alice Loweecey
A Giulia Driscoll Mystery (#1)
Giulia Falcone-Driscoll has just taken on her first impossible client: The Silk Tie Killer. He’s hired Driscoll Investigations to prove his innocence and they have only thirteen days to accomplish it. Talk about being tried in the media. Everyone in town is sure Roger Fitch strangled his girlfriend with one of his silk neckties. And then there’s the local TMZ wannabes—The Scoop—stalking Giulia and her client for sleazy sound bites.
On top of all that, her assistant’s first baby is due any second, her scary smart admin still doesn’t relate well to humans, and her police detective husband insists her client is guilty. About this marriage thing—it’s unknown territory, but it sure beats ten years of living with 150 nuns.
Giulia’s ownership of Driscoll Investigations hasn’t changed her passion for justice from her convent years. But the more dirt she digs up, the more she’s worried her efforts will help a murderer escape. As the client accuses DI of dragging its heels on purpose, Giulia thinks The Silk Tie Killer might be choosing one of his ties for her own neck.
Read all about it and/or grab the book from Amazon
CLICK FOR NUN TOO SOON
THE AMBITIOUS CARD
John Gaspard
An Eli Marks Mystery (#1)
The life of a magician isn’t all kiddie shows and card tricks. Some-times it’s murder. Especially when magician Eli Marks very publicly debunks a famed psychic, and said psychic ends up dead. The evidence, including a bloody King of Diamonds playing card (one from Eli’s own Ambitious Card routine), directs the police right to Eli.
As more psychics are slain, and more King cards rise to the top, Eli can’t escape suspicion. Things get really complicated when romance blooms with a beautiful psychic, and Eli discovers she’s the next target for murder, and he’s scheduled to die with her. Now Eli must use every trick he knows to keep them both alive and reveal the true killer.
Read all about it and/or grab the book from Amazon
CLICK FOR THE AMBITIOUS CARD
FINDING SKY
Susan O’Brien
A Nicki Valentine Mystery
Suburban widow and P.I. in training Nicki Valentine can barely keep track of her two kids, never mind anyone else. But when her best friend’s adoption plan is jeopardized by the young birth mother’s disappearance, Nicki is persuaded to help. Nearly everyone else believes the teenager ran away, but Nicki trusts her BFF’s judgment, and the feeling is mutual.
The case leads where few moms go (teen parties, gang shootings) and places they can’t avoid (preschool parties, OB-GYNs’ offices). Nicki has everything to lose and much to gain — including the attention of her unnervingly hot P.I. instructor. Thankfully, Nicki is armed with her pesky conscience, occasional babysitters, a fully stocked minivan, and nature’s best defense system: women’s intuition.
Read all about it and/or grab the book from Amazon
CLICK FOR FINDING SKY
BOARD STIFF
Kendel Lynn
An Elliott Lisbon Mystery (#1)
As director of the Ballantyne Foundation on Sea Pine Island, SC, Elliott Lisbon scratches her detective itch by performing discreet inquiries for Foundation donors. Usually nothing more serious than retrieving a pilfered Pomeranian. Until Jane Hatting, Ballantyne board chair, is accused of murder. The Ballantyne’s reputation tanks, Jane’s headed to a jail cell, and Elliott’s sexy ex is the new lieutenant in town.
Armed with moxie and her Mini Coop, Elliott uncovers a trail of blackmail schemes, gambling debts, illicit affairs, and investment scams. But the deeper she digs to clear Jane’s name, the guiltier Jane looks. The closer she gets to the truth, the more treacherous her investigation becomes. With victims piling up faster than shells at a clambake, Elliott realizes she’s next on the killer’s list.
Read all about it and/or grab the book from Amazon
CLICK FOR BOARD STIFF
PILLOW STALK
Diane Vallere
A Mad for Mod Mystery (#1)
Interior Decorator Madison Night has modeled her life after a character in a Doris Day movie, but when a killer targets women dressed like the bubbly actress, Madison’s signature sixties style places her in the middle of a homicide investigation.
The local detective connects the new crimes to a twenty-year-old cold case, and Madison’s long-trusted contractor emerges as the leading suspect. As the body count piles up like a stack of plush pillows, Madison uncovers a Soviet spy, a campaign to destroy all Doris Day movies, and six minutes of film that will change her life forever.
Read all about it and/or grab the book from Amazon
CLICK FOR PILLOW STALK