Ritu Sethi Books In Order

Publication Order of Chief Inspector Gray James Books

Ritu Sethi is a Canadian author of suspense, mystery and crime novels best known for her His Hand in the Storm the first book in Inspector Gray James Series. She needs beaches, murder mysteries and coffee to survive. She was born in India, and her family relocated to Canada when she was only four years old. She has won Colorado Gold Award for her Inspector Gray series debut novel, and the novel was also a finalist in Daphne du Maurier Suspense.

Sethi has spent many years in Vancouver and Montreal. It’s these two cities that her Gray James books are set. She is a diehard mystery reader focusing more on classic psychological mysteries. When the author couldn’t find the perfect recipe for her main character, (a combination of James Bond, Hercule Poirot, and Dalgliesh), she created him, an original character you’ll want to associate with. She crafts her books in the dining room table and as a self-published author plans everything from her book blurbs, plot, and cover. According to an interview published online, Sethi admits to draws inspiration from Elizabeth George her masters’ classmate in Tuscany, Agatha Christie, Colin Dexter, and PD James.

His Hand in the Storm

A man adapts to life in any way he can after murdering his only son. James team think he’s calm while his boss finds him to be a little obsessive and suspects think of him as handsome but dangerous.

He is chiseling the remembered likeness of his son when he gets a call- the call is about a faceless man who’s found hanging by the swirls of snow, choppy river. While Montreal glitters and the downtown alleys are filled with slippery snow, a killer is lurking in the darkness, killing the owners of a fast growing medical research company. This propels Gray into a spiral that tears down his hard-earned peace puts his life in danger and threatens him to come face to face with something he thought to have been long buried.

The first novel in the series is a wonderful and brilliant read. Even after the death of his only son, the chief still does solve each case that comes his way with startling efficiency and perfection. His Hand in the Storm is a brilliantly crafted and a page-turning story that hits all the mark with a story premise which is excellent and primary and secondary characters who are finely woven and incredible. Gray is a character haunted by his past but has a responsibility/duty towards his city. He must solve each case that comes his way and must face them head-on. The emotional connection between Gray and his junior detective adds depth and spices up the story.

Kill Me Why

Gray is standing at the exact scene where he accidentally murdered his son when he gets the news the Stitcher is alive after 15 years of absence. And the victim vanishes just a few minutes after he’s discovered at a proximal Body Farm.

Something dark is brewing at the peaceful local town of Halfmoon Bay – edged between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean near Vancouver, a city where he spent his childhood and where he killed his son.

With a dark hole forming from within, and his beloved family threatened, Gray must find the snitcher before the worst hits the town and his beloved wives takes what matters to him the most and before his skeletons in the closet are unleashed.

Ritu Sethi books are set in big cities in Canada. It’s important to note that while born in India she spent her childhood in Canada after her family relocated when she was only four. Different authors set their novels in fictional settings while others in real life settings. While it’s true there’s no “best” setting, it all comes down to the particular story the author has in mind because different stories always demand different settings.

For example, let’s say an author wants to write a story about a magician who wants to do his voodoo and make the Eiffel Tower vanish. It’s kind of tricky to set such a story in a fictional French town because everyone knows Eiffel tower is in Paris. But other stories, such as Lord of the Rings that involve dragons and elves demand only for the fictional setting because there’s no existence of such creatures.

Real life settings give readers a strong connection. For example, Kill Me Why is set in Vancouver and guess what? If you live in Vancouver or you’ve already been in the city, it’s already more natural for you to connect with the characters and the setting itself. For those who’ve never been to the bustling west coast city in British Columbia, it’s easy for you to grab some information from the internet and in no time be connected to the story itself.

Real life settings demand that the author get their facts straight. Ritu Sethi sets the facts straight without any silly slips. If you’ve read books set in your local hometown, you will notice that sometimes the author fails to set the facts straight. Take this example, if a subway from point A to B takes 15 minutes and the author tells you it takes one hour, that’s a complete turn-off. For any readers with local knowledge, such slips will make the readers question the stories authenticity. Expect no such silly mistakes in Ritu Sethi book series.

Additionally, any novel or book series set in a small town calls for a limited number of suspects and personal motive. On the other hand, novels set in large cities, in the case Chief Inspector Gray James Series have an endless list of suspects and the killers are driven by a variety of motive that takes the main character a good deal of time to figure out. Sethi’s main character Inspector Gray James isn’t shielded from any of these. He works in big cities, and so different motives drive every suspect in his long list of suspects.

Overall, Chief Inspector Gray James Series is a great read, carefully woven and set in some of the largest and busiest cities in Canada. From the information stated above, it’s true that the author did extensive research before crafting these stories.