The story of how locked-room mystery THE LIBRARY GAME came to be

The Library Game, my new Secret Staircase Mystery, is my love letter to libraries and classic mysteries.

In this locked-room mystery, Tempest Raj and the Secret Staircase Construction crew must figure out who is making beloved classic mystery plots come to life in a deadly game.

Want to hear the story of how my new locked-room mystery The Library Game came to be?

I've adored locked-room mysteries since I was a kid. Books by authors like John Dickson Carr, Clayton Rawson, and Agatha Christie. Those truly baffling "impossible crime" puzzles are such fun—BUT when I became a writer, I also learned how challenging those puzzles were to write!

I began writing locked-room mystery short stories, to learn the craft. My stories went on to win Agatha and Derringer Awards, and I was having so much fun, but I also had a locked-room puzzle idea that needed a full novel to properly tell the story. The problem? I wasn’t yet ready to pull it off.

Back in 2015, I wrote a short story featuring stage illusionist Tempest Raj for a Sisters in Crime Los Angeles Chapter anthology, LAdies Night. Tempest had been mentioned in passing in my Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mysteries, as a friend of Sanjay’s, so the short story was just a bit of fun. But instead of getting her out of my system, Tempest had such a strong personality that she insisted I do more with her! By the spring of 2020, when I unexpectedly had free time on my hands after a book research trip was canceled, I’d written more than a dozen impossible crime short stories. This was it. I was ready to tell Tempest’s story.

I started writing Under Lock & Skeleton Key, the first book in my Secret Staircase mystery series, thinking it would be a stand-alone locked-room mystery novel. But my character Tempest Raj and her friends and family had so many more stories they wanted to tell! I knew, then, that it had to be a series.

Each of the novels stands alone with its own mystery, though there’s one big background mystery that’s solved at the end of Book 3, A Midnight Puzzle, so I had total freedom for what I wanted to do with The Library Game. The answer presented itself easily. I’ve gotten so much value from my local library in recent years, and classic mysteries inspired the whole series, so this book would be my love letter to both of them.

At the start of The Library Game, it’s a fresh start for Tempest Raj as she figures out what comes next for her in her life now that she’s solved the mystery of the Raj family curse. She jumps into solving her most baffling mystery yet—one that's not only an impossible crime, but one that's a closed circle of suspects of people she knows.

Tempest and Secret Staircase Construction are renovating a classic detective fiction library that just got its first real-life mystery. When the library’s new owner hosts a murder mystery dinner, the rehearsal ends with a locked room murder and a vanishing body. Fueled by her grandfather’s Scottish and Indian meals, Tempest and the crew must figure out who is making beloved classic mystery plots come to life in a deadly game.

The hardcover, ebook, and audiobook are now available everywhere books are sold.

The Library Game is published by Minotaur Books and Macmillan Audio, with the amazing Soneela Nankani narrating the audiobooks. I’m so grateful for my terrific publishing team at St. Martin’s / Minotaur Books and agent Jill Marsal for making Tempest’s story a reality.

The Secret Staircase Mysteries are all locked-room mysteries brimming with food, family, and friendship.

At Secret Staircase Construction, stage illusionist Tempest Raj weaves magic into homes through ingenious architectural misdirection from sliding bookcases to hidden libraries.

I hope you have fun with the new book!

There’s a body in the library—and everyone is a suspect.

Should I grow my own tea plants?

I don't have the green thumb of Zoe Faust, and I can't cook as well as Dorian Robert-Houdin. But through my novels, I can explore subjects I love in more depth and live vicariously through my characters.

I love scribbling plot and character ideas in my paper notebook, seeing what develops as I play with different twists and introduce strong-willed characters to each other. But to add the details that really bring a book to life, that's where book research comes in.

For The Alchemist of Riddle and Ruin, part of that research involved tea. I already love drinking tea, so Max's journey in the book, as he prepares to open The Alchemy of Tea, was a great excuse to learn more about it.

Two books I especially enjoyed were Grow Your Own Tea: The Complete Guide to Cultivating, Harvest, and Preparing by Christine Parks and Susan M. Walcott and Homegrown Tea: An Illustrated Guide to Planting, Harvesting, and Blending Teas and Tisanes by Cassie Liversidge.

Technically, "tea" is made from the leaves of the camellia sinensis plant. The leaves of the tea tree are harvested to make white, green, oolong, and black tea. Anything else we think of as tea, such as mint tea or chamomile tea, is actually an herbal infusion—or a decoction made by boiling heartier elements like roots and bark. But "herbal tea" is so commonly used that I use that easily-understood distinction of tea and herbal tea.

I already knew a fair amount about tea, but one thing I didn't previously realize was that it's possible to grow tea plants in California. Any tea I grow in my backyard wouldn't have the same flavors as old-growth trees in parts of the world where tea has been grown and harvested for centuries, but still.... it's tempting to try it!

I also took an herbal tea workshop at the Herbal Academy, which was so much fun, and now I'm experimenting with even more loose-leaf teas.

A few of my favorite herbal teas right now. camomile flowers, a blend of green tea and herbs, CCF tea (an ayurvedic mix of spices: cumin, coriander, and fennel seeds), and nettle tea is in my mug right now.

For now, I'm sticking to growing herbs for herbal teas, like this mint growing in my backyard garden.

Read more in The Alchemist of Riddle and Ruin.