Title : Harbinder Kaur Series
Author : Elly Griffiths
Narrators : Anjana Vasan, Nina Wadia
Genre : Mystery
Rating : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Narrator Rating : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I am always on the lookout for new mystery novels and I recently came across The Harbinder Kaur mystery series by Elly Griffiths. Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur is a second generation British citizen, born and brought up in the UK with Punjabi Sikh parents who run a restaurant (her mother is a very good cook). 

The series has 4 books, out of which I’ve listened to the first 3. In the first The Stranger Diaries DS Kaur investigates, the death of English school teachers. This one got me hooked to the series! The second book is the PostScript murders in which a 90 or old woman with a heart condition is found dead, but the death looks suspicious. The third book is Bleeding Heart yard. A murder occurs at a school reunion and the person found dead Is a local MP who might have been prime minister one day. The Last Word is the 4th and last book of the series.

In the first book, DS Kaur lives with her parents, but after a promotion she moves to London, and gets a team of her own. DS Kaur is a very interesting character because she’s a brown Punjabi policewoman in the UK. And she’s gay – though that is only marginally hinted at/mentioned. She feels the tug of family ties – the whole Indian food/culture thing all mixed in with her English friends and coworkers. Her parents are always exhorting her to visit home, and feeding her parathas and samosas. They don’t know about her being gay, but towards the second or third book, they start to have an inkling. 

One of the advantages of still living with your parents at the age of thirty-six – don’t get me going on the disadvantages – is that my mum makes me breakfast. I remember, when I was at primary school, being asked to describe a typical breakfast. I began, ‘First you make the makki roti. . .’ Kevin Brewster laughed so much he had to leave the room. I realised that English families ate things like toast and rice crispies. They didn’t have stuffed parathas or chole or masala omelettes. Well, their loss.

I’ve listened to these books and they all were beautifully narrated. The Stranger Diaries has multiple narrators, including Anjana Vasan. The 2nd and 3rd books were narrated by Nina Wadia who is quite an amazing story-teller!

This is a wonderful series and I’m a little sad that there only four books in it. The books are beautifully written. The characters are very interesting, and nicely detailed out. Harbinder Kaur herself is a real sleuth and someone you can get behind. She’s plucky, brave and very determined. 

Highly, highly recommended.