The following is a query for a new novel. Any comments appreciated.
Actor Philip Raine may be television’s most formidable detective, but even he can’t foil the fluid seeping into his pericardium and drowning his heart. As his condition worsens, he makes long-term arrangements for his physically disabled daughter. That done, he finally works up the courage to confess his love to Niya, an enigmatic waitress at the Moonlight Tandoori, a Pakistani restaurant in Los Angeles. On the night he reveals his feelings, a gunfight erupts outside the restaurant's display window and a stray bullet strikes Niya. As she loses consciousness, she addresses him as if he were his television character, pleading, “Take me to Shangri-La, Detective Leon.”
Philip is baffled until he sees the shooter scouting Niya’s hospital room. Cued by Niya’s request, Philip slips into his fictional role and tracks the gunman. As he ventures through the shooter’s haunts, eerily similar to the locales of his own fictional series, Philip unpacks a plot that links rape and murder in Pakistan to LA’s Little Islamabad and leads back to Niya’s shooting at the Moonlight Tandoori. The bullet was no stray, nor her plea traumatic rambling.
Possessing this information, Philip intends to disclose it to the authorities. But the relentless and resourceful assassin knows Philip's weakness, including the vulnerable Coleen. In the final confrontation, Philip faces an impossible choice of protecting his daughter from the assassin or fulfilling Niya’s wish to take her to Shangri-La.
MOONLIGHT TANDOORI is a literary mystery complete at 70,000 words. Along with Philip's POV is the POV of Niya, whose injury prevents her from communicating with the outside world, chronicles her escape from an arranged marriage in Pakistan. Niya’s story interleaves Philip’s.
Actor Philip Raine may be television’s most formidable detective, but even he can’t foil the fluid seeping into his pericardium and drowning his heart. As his condition worsens, he makes long-term arrangements for his physically disabled daughter. That done, he finally works up the courage to confess his love to Niya, an enigmatic waitress at the Moonlight Tandoori, a Pakistani restaurant in Los Angeles. On the night he reveals his feelings, a gunfight erupts outside the restaurant's display window and a stray bullet strikes Niya. As she loses consciousness, she addresses him as if he were his television character, pleading, “Take me to Shangri-La, Detective Leon.”
Philip is baffled until he sees the shooter scouting Niya’s hospital room. Cued by Niya’s request, Philip slips into his fictional role and tracks the gunman. As he ventures through the shooter’s haunts, eerily similar to the locales of his own fictional series, Philip unpacks a plot that links rape and murder in Pakistan to LA’s Little Islamabad and leads back to Niya’s shooting at the Moonlight Tandoori. The bullet was no stray, nor her plea traumatic rambling.
Possessing this information, Philip intends to disclose it to the authorities. But the relentless and resourceful assassin knows Philip's weakness, including the vulnerable Coleen. In the final confrontation, Philip faces an impossible choice of protecting his daughter from the assassin or fulfilling Niya’s wish to take her to Shangri-La.
MOONLIGHT TANDOORI is a literary mystery complete at 70,000 words. Along with Philip's POV is the POV of Niya, whose injury prevents her from communicating with the outside world, chronicles her escape from an arranged marriage in Pakistan. Niya’s story interleaves Philip’s.