Radha Vatsal - "No. 10 Doyers Street”
Dear Reader,
The first detective story I ever read featured Richard Scarry’s Sam and Dudley—a cat and pig crime-solving duo. I also loved Scarry’s tale about “Pierre, the Paris Policeman” who apprehends a jewel thief hiding in a vat of soup!
As a teenager, I moved on to darker tales: Agatha Christie and murders in sprawling English country homes; Dick Francis, whose best novels involve thuggery in professional horse racing; and John Grisham’s twisty legal thrillers.
For me, the best crime fiction combines the satisfaction of a tight plot with the opportunity to learn something new while being entertained. And that’s what I aim to achieve in my novels.
My three novels so far have all been historical mysteries set in early 20 th Century New York City.(The first two featured Kitty Weeks solving mysteries in the 1910s.) I stumbled on the inspiration for my latest book, No. 10 Doyers Street, while reading old issues of the New York Times.
A 1907 article in the paper grew into “ No. 10 Doyers Street”, a novel about the Chinatown gangster Mock Duck, his young daughter, and a woman journalist from India searching for the truth. I based it on real events and combined what was happening to Mock personally with the mayor of New York City’s concurrent efforts to demolish Chinatown—in order, the mayor says, to get rid of all the “undesirable elements.”
A reviewer told me she finished No. 10 Doyers Street in a day and half and that when she wasn’t reading the novel she was thinking about it and about Mock Duck and Archana Morley—the narrator.
I hope you will check out No. 10 Doyers Street and support this wonderful bookstore!
Cheers,
Radha Vatsal
BIO
Radha Vatsal is the author of No. 10 Doyers Street and the Kitty Weeks mystery novels set in World War I-era New York. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Review of Books, CrimeReads, and elsewhere.
Born and raised in Mumbai, India, she earned her Ph.D. in Film History from Duke University and has worked as a film curator, speechwriter, and freelance journalist.
Follow Radha at:
Website: www.radhavatsal.com
Instagram:@radha_vatsal
Facebook: radha.vatsal
Substack: radhavatsal.substack.com