THE Last Kashmiri Rose by Barbara Cleverley is a novel of suspense set against the final days of the Raj and turbulent early period of Indian rule.

It introduced Detective Inspector Joe Sandilands of Scotland Yard in the first book of a new murder mystery series.

It is India 1922, and in Panikhat, 50 miles from Calcutta, the wives of the Bengal Greys have been suffering violent deaths.

Each year in March, one of the wives falls victim to a bizarre and seemingly accidental death.

The only link between them is the bunch of small red roses that appears on each of the women's graves on the anniversary of their deaths.

The governor of Bengal calls on the reluctant Joe Sandilands to help solve the mystery.

Joe is a Scotland Yard detective and war hero on secondment to the Bengal police.

He discovers the deaths are connected, and the series has not yet run its course. But who will be the recipient of the next Kashmiri rose?

With only days to go before the end of March, can Joe uncover the murderer whose compulsions seem to be rooted deep within the dark soul of India?

Born in the North of England, Barbara Cleverly has spent her working life in Cambridge and Suffolk.

After years of teaching, she now lives in a medieval house in a Suffolk village.

The Last Kashmiri Rose is her first book, which was inspired by her success in the Crime Writers' Association/Sunday Times Debut Dagger Competition.

Barbara is currently working on a new Joe Sandilands murder mystery.

Barbara said: "Just over a year ago I found myself a jobless 50-something with an elderly and frail husband, on whom the shades appeared to be closing in rapidly.

"A combination of myasthenia gravis, cataracts on both eyes and poor hearing were cutting him off from the world, and I had a vision of this lively man abandoned at the bottom of a well, with me as his sole contact with the outside world.

"In a moment of despair, my eye fell on an announcement in the Sunday Times.

"They were inviting submissions in a Debut Dagger thriller writing competition.

"I thought for a moment, and the plot of a detective novel along with the characters cane to mind with surprising completeness.

"I remember it took me about 20 minutes to outline the story. Months of research were to follow, but, at that moment, confidence flowed, and we were working against the clock -- only one week was left before the competition closed.

"A couple of months before, I had found a battered old tin trunk in the attic.

"Out spilled more than two centuries of memories of a family whose exploits and achievements marched in time with the flowering of the British Empire, a family of soldiers, statesman, architects, doctors and artists, but my attention was caught by the photograph of a young boy.

"His resemblance to my stepson was extraordinary.

"My husband told me it was his uncle, Brigadier Harold Richard Sandilands, CMG, DSO Legion d'Honneur and Corona d'Italia, who had spent a lot of time in India.

"Further photographs of the same man came to hand -- in full dress uniform of the Northumberland Fusiliers bound for war in South Africa, the competent, heavily moustached young Captain in khaki service dress about to set off for Flanders.

"Harold had been General Officer commanding at Peshwar on the North-west frontier at one of its most turbulent periods.

"He was fluent in Urdu, Persian and Pushtu. It was aspects of this man's life and career that inspired the creation of Joe Sandilands.

"We didn't win the Debut Dagger Competition, but we were short-listed in the final 10 out of 800 entries.

"Our entry caught the attention of some of the judges who encouraged us to finish it."

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