Personally I thought Peril at the Exposition was a unique story.
I loved the mystery, characters were interesting and this story just kept me glued to the pages.
The mystery pulls you in and doesn't stop.
March outdid herself here.
I’ve enjoyed the previous titles in the Captain Jim and Lady Diana Mysteries, but book four was so much more entertaining.

Minotaur Books,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

Still a great romp through India, though the way the character goes about solving mysteries is starting to feel a bit pedantic, with Shakespeare and Holmes now thrown in more gratuitously than meaningfully. I loved this series for a while, but I think I've outgrown it and this will probably be my last read.

This is the second book I’ve read by this author, and it is just as enjoyable as the first. It’s way to a different time and place and totally captures you from the first page to the last.

In Nev March’s fourth novel, we have the pleasure of once again becoming immersed in the world of Captain Jim Agnihotri and Lady Diana Framji, circa 1894, as they solve another mystery together. Intertwined with the intrigue is great global history of the times, ranging from the US to England to India.
Narrated by Capt. Jim, who goes by surname O’Trey for simplicity, the story finds him helping Diana’s brother Adi, whose partner in a silver instrument factory has been killed, with Adi accused of the murder. Jim investigates, with the tenets of Sherlock Holmes always in mind. The plot is wonderfully complex and appealing to this longtime fan of mysteries and Holmes.
What elevates this series is March’s beautifully descriptive prose, providing a great sense of place and historical atmosphere. I felt at times like I was on the streets of 19th century Bombay. The tone and tenor of the prose is appropriate for the time period, with colloquialisms imbedded in the narrative.
The characters and local customs are also of the times, and, over 100 years later, it is sometimes difficult to see Jim and Diana struggle for respect due to race and/or social custom. Feisty Diana strains against the restrictions of caste and society, and ultimately they again realize why they relocated to the western world.
While this book is the fourth in a series it can be easily read as a stand-alone. Readers of intelligent mysteries and atmospheric historical fiction will enjoy this story. Its final scene has me looking forward to the next entry in this wonderful series!

Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the ARC. This is my honest review.

My thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books for an ARC of this novel.

I’ve been a Nev Marsh fan since the first novel in her historical mystery series set in late 19th century Bombay. With Queen Victoria on the throne, India was a colony very much ruled by the British, intent on pursuing their racist ‘civilizing’ mission.

Once again, we follow the adventures of retired military officer Captain Jim Agnihotri and his beautiful Parsi wife Diana Framji. For those new to the series, the Captain is of mixed heritage, his mother Indian and his unknown father British; he was raised in a Catholic orphanage. Diana is the daughter of a wealthy Parsi exporter and entrepreneur. Highly intelligent and intrepid, she has greatly offended the exclusive Parsi community by marrying an ‘outsider.’ Having lived a few years in Boston, where Jim works for a famous detective agency, the couple has been summoned back to Bombay to help Diana’s brother Adi. The three are very close, and Adi is in serious trouble. His business partner —the silversmith of the title—was murdered, dying in his arms and, according to the British police, presumably guilty. It appears that he was involved in a number of nefarious undertakings that leave the upright, law abiding Adi implicated and supposedly motivated to kill him.

The Captain and Lady Diana, as they are known, truly have a puzzle to solve, which sees Jim once again modelling the multi-disguise strategies of his literary hero, Sherlock Holmes. Diana is able to assist him with her inside knowledge of Bombay society, its clans, castes and customs. The couple also has to deal with her father’s business losses, that have forced him to seek financial assistance from community members. But the Parsis have more or less shunned the family since Diana’s marriage, adding to the overall tension.

Born in India to a Parsi family herself, the author writes a fascinating and culturally nuanced story. Its varied settings include the bustling city streets and markets, the slums, brothels and prisons, the temples, and factories and banks, the mansions of the privileged, both Indian and British. Her novels invoke the scents and sounds of India, the importance of family, the carefully delimited interactions between castes—and almost literally the taste of the splendid meals of their custom. I was struck, again, by the complex social structure of Victorian India, where more than 150 dialects are spoken and identity is defined by a multitude of variables—gender, age, class, caste, religion, skin colour trade and profession, history. Marsh’s detailed epilogue provides more fascinating explanation. Her writing is lucid and often humorous. Although long and rather involved, this is a five-star reading experience whether you are new to the series or a devoted follower.

When I was invited by Minotaur Press to read Nev March’s latest book, The Silversmith’s Puzzle, I did not hesitate. In the fourth book of this series, Captain Jim and Lady Diana return to India to help Adi, Diana’s brother. Adi is accused of killing his business partner. While Jim knows that Adi can’t have killed the man, Adi and other people are keeping secrets.
The quality of Nev March’s writing is superb. Her historical research is impeccable. She continues to show how difficult it would have been for Jim and Diana to thrive as a married couple from very diverse backgrounds.
The author has a deft hand in weaving real life events into the protagonists’ lives without hitting us over the head with this.
I gave this book 5 stars. While the author does not leave us without resolving the central mystery, she does leave us with a couple things unresolved. I certainly hope that they don’t leave us hanging! I look forward to the next installment of this series

Nev March’s incomparable Captain Jim and Lady Diana return to India!

As always I’m absolutely consumed with Captain Jim Agnihotri and his wife Diana. I’m so glad they’ve returned to India—a breath taking, colorful and magical place, along with its squalor, religious differences, underlying tensions and gathering troubles for the colonial British.
Diana’s parsi family welcomes them. Diana’s parsi friends and acquaintance? No! Jim and Diana are beyond the tight knit community’s social pale. Jim hurts to see his wife treated so. Diana walks through it all, sad but unrepentant for having married outside the circle. (I love how they relate with each other)
However that’s not their main concern. Adi, Diana’s brother, has been arrested for the murder of his friend and business partner Satya Rastogi. Satya was the scion of a powerful parsi family who are jewellers.
What Jim and Diana will uncover is theft, corruption, murder, and stolen gold.
The path to the truth is behind veiled references and clouded by secrecy. Even when the shocking facts are revealed we are left with the idea of a malignant force behind all that’s happened. Jim’s hero Sherlock Holmes is referred to constantly leaving us to wonder who is Jim’s Professor Moriarty?
Family is important to Jim. He has none. His quest for who his father might be never Leaves him.
Returning to India prompts Jim’s earliest memories, increasing his wondering about who his father is.
An action packed, fabulous read!

A Minotaur Books ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.
(Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)

I loved, loved, loved the first book in this series, Murder in Old Bombay. In that first book, the main characters, Captain Jim Agnihotri and Lady Diana Framji, meet and marry despite some pretty steep obstacles. Jim is half white, half Indian, and he is not a Parsi, as Lady Diana is. The Parsis, the aristocrats of Indian culture in the 1890’s, have very strict rules about marrying outside the faith. This creates problems for the couple.
Jim, a dashing and decorated Captain in the British army, has worked as a journalist and a private investigator for the Framji family. He met the Framjis when he searched for the killer of Diana’s sister-in-law. In this novel, it’s her widower, Diana’s brother Adi, who is in trouble. The two novels in between this one and the first found Diana and Jim in Boston and Chicago and on a steamship crossing the ocean. Those novels, which were fine traditional mysteries, nevertheless lacked the zip and life of the first novel. As the Agnihotris return to India, however, life returns to this wonderful series.

Adi is in serious trouble. His business partner has been murdered and he’s the most likely suspect. The two of them had been manufacturing surgical instruments but were having a tough go selling them as they are made in India. Doctors seem to want instruments made in the UK. Not only is the business partner dead but the business is struggling, and it turns out that the man had borrowed all kinds of money as well as cleaning out Adi’s bank account before he died.

Additionally, the Framjis, while delighted to have Diana and Jim home again, are finding themselves shunned, both because of Adi’s situation and because of Diana and Jim’s marriage. Jim, who feels responsible for the family’s plight and worries about his wife’s pain, wants nothing more than to save Adi and discover the true killer. This is made far more difficult and time imperative when Adi is actually arrested and taken to jail.
Jim operates on his knowledge of Adi’s character and calls on the various connections he’s made in Bombay – through the army, the police, and from his brief stint as a journalist. March, a devotee of Holmes (as is Jim), has created a series that relies, as Doyle’s creation did, on deduction, and also includes Sherlock’s love of disguise and adventure. Jim is having little success until he mobilizes the entire Framji family in his endeavour, finding a team works better than he could alone.

The disguises, tricky connections, and well laid out mystery are a delight, but what brings the book to life are not only the personalities of Jim and Diana (and her family) but the city of Bombay, which serves as a character as well. One way of armchair travel is of course geographical, but another way, in the hands of a gifted writer, is virtual time travel. When reading this novel you can feel you are back in old Bombay, a city on the cusp of independence from the British, a city with arcane connections between classes that make everything function.

The mystery here is excellent and if March takes a minute to unfold her tale, be assured it’s well worth it. She’s a master storyteller. I am hoping she keeps her couple in Bombay, as they still have a few issues to resolve, issues which add resonance and depth to this wonderful series. If you’re up for a bit of time travel coupled with a great story, pick this one up.

I thank NetGalley and Minotaur Books for an advance reader copy of “The Silversmith’s Puzzle.” All opinions and comments are my own.

A return to home should have brought happy feelings to Captain Jim Angihotri and his wife Lady Diana; instead, in “The Silversmith’s Puzzle” they will be faced with the family fortune disappearing, being ostracized by society (because of their marriage), and, worst of all, Diana’s brother Adi accused of killing his business partner. Not the welcome anyone would want for a visit to Bombay.

But Jim, or as he is known in America, James Agney/O’Trey, is a very good detective, and though he may be in another country, the rules of deduction still apply. It will be difficult, and a long and strange trip it is (with lots of twists and turns along the way). The “powers that be” would like nothing better than to make it all go away, but our Anglo-Indian detective has other plans. The result is a tale of betrayal, deception, and eventually, the consequences of love, whereby some bad people are finally ferreted out, and the truth discovered.

Within the pages, besides the murder investigation, author Nev March weaves a fascinating tale of Parsi customs, Indian traditions and culture and of course British influence on the country. The strength of her writing in making the setting, plot and characterization come alive is evident on every page. “The Silversmith’s Puzzle” is a fascinating look at a faraway civilization and a puzzling mystery at the same time, especially enjoyable for historical mystery fans.

This is the fourth book in the Captain Jim and Lady Diana Mysteries Series. This time, Lady Diana's brother Adi is accused of murder.ing his business partner, a silversmith. Captain Jim and Lady Diana rush back to Bombay to try to save him from the gallows. Set in lush, late-Victorian India, Captain Jim and Diana struggle with the complexities of caste, tradition, and loyalty. The traditional Parsi community finds Jim and Diana's marriage taboo and shuns them.. 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?

I hadn't read the previous books in the series, but I feel like each book could be read as a standalone. The mystery kept me guessing, and I enjoyed the setting and time period. I did have trouble getting invested in the characters - they all felt a little too flat for me, but other than that it was an enjoyable mystery.

The Silversmiths Puzzle, is the fourth book in the captain Jim and Lady Diana mysteries by NAV March, when Jim and Diana are summoned to England Jim learns Diana‘s brother is in big trouble but when a murder investigation brings them back to their home land put Lady Diana‘s father on the suspect list turned it into a kidnapping and makes Captain Jim a thief with his life on the line will it once again end with a happy ever after or with Lady Diana a widow? These books are so well worded I love them so much and there was way too much as always in the plot to give a good brief summary I’ve touched on the highlights but there is way more to the couples home homecoming then just what I put in my review this book is not only funny but intelligently done And always before the end had my heart palpitating. I love these books and cannot recommend them enough if you’re a fan of historical cozy mysteries then you definitely cannot miss the international amateur slueth captain Jim and lady Diana mysteries.#NetGalley,#SaintMartin’sPress, TheBlindReviewer, #MyHonestReview, #NevMarch, #CaptainJimAndLadyDianaMysteries, #TheSilversmithsPuzzle,

It’s another well written book in this series.
I did think it moved a little too slow for me.
The first book in this series is still my favorite.

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.

For Diana it is a dream come true to be back in her beloved India. Back with family. Even if the reason is to clear her brother of a crime he did not commit.
To her disappointment she realized what affects her marriage outside her own cast had on her parents. While living in America she had been unaware. They are no longer financially stable. Their own cast community have turned against them for having allowed their daughter to marry a biracial man. Frustration grows as the invitations to her homecoming are being turned down one after another. All this makes it harder to find out the truth behind the murder of her brother’s partner. It is amazing how far people are willing to go in name of religion and Cast purity. The story brings insight of colonialism in India during Queen Vitoria’s reign. These stories are fast reads but full of content. Looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

The Silversmith’s Puzzle by Nev March is the latest book in the series. Captain Jim and Lady Diana have been living in America. Jim is a Private Investigator. Diana is very helpful in the story
They return home to help Adi, Diana’s brother and Jim, a good friend. He is being accused of murdering his business partner.
Jim uses his old connections to investigate the crime. I love the description of 1890 Inda and all the interaction – where class and community are very strong.
The book is beautifully written, and I enjoyed this one set in India—the ones set in America are good but to me the India ones good -

Jim and Diana travel back to India with her brother Adi to clear him of a murder charge. His partner in the business is found dead with Adi standing over him. Witnesses give conflicting reports about the event, but Jim knows his brother-in-law is not a killer. As Jim and Diana dig deeper into the lives of the people involved, they discover many secrets and risk their own future happiness to save her brother. This is such a lush, lovely series. I look forward to the next book.

Captain Jim and Lady Diana return to home to Bombay to find that Diana's beloved brother Adi has been accused of murdering his business partner.

In amongst this crisis, there is additional strife caused by those who shun Diana's family because of her marriage to Jim, which leads to financial issues for the Framji family.

This is an exciting addition to the continuing tales of human interactions in Victorian era India. This is the second Captain Jim and Lady Diana book I've read. I will be keeping watch for more. Very entertaining and I highly recommend this book.

Many thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC..

My thanks to Net Galley and St Martin's/Minotaur for allowing me this arc.

I'm going to just say this was only ok. I was not wowed. Jim and Diana were interesting characters and I enjoyed learning about the Indian/Parsi way of life but some of the terms confusing and this wasn't a page turner.

This is a well-written, entertaining, historical fiction, mystery novel. It has a likable and intelligent male protagonist, murder, an intriguing mystery, an unexpected twist, and a satisfying conclusion. I enjoyed being immersed in the vividly described locale, time period, customs, and culture. The author's notes are interesting and informative, and are truly appreciated. I especially enjoyed learning about Ms. March's touching family tradition. Many thanks to Ms. Nev March, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley, from whom I received an advanced reader copy of this wonderful novel. This is my honest opinion.

This is the fourth book in the series, set in the 1890's.

Jim and Diana return to Bombay when Diana's brother Adi is accused of a serious crime, and he comes to the USA to ask Jim to help him.

Jim begins to realize the cost that the Framji family has paid, in their Parsi community, when Jim married Diana. The family, and Jim and Diana in particular, are now on the outside of the community.

Jim investigates the crime from multiple angles, using his many disguises and his community connections. Once again, it is Diana that wants to get involved, and who manages to come up with some clever ideas to ind the real criminals.

Excellent characters, and a really interesting plot, with several side stories that all come together.I was fascinated to find that the author based many of the plot points on real historic happenings.

I enjoyed this book even more since the couple returned to India, and we get the descriptions of the lives of the people in the 1890's. I'm looking forward to the next book.