Ravi Singh

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Created by Adi Tantimedh

“Pack of racists in bomber jackets called me a “fucking Paki” on the street the other day. The usual stuff about going back to where I came from. Racists never need facts or accuracy, and I wasn’t goping to correct them and say I was actually Hindu, of Indian ancestry, and not Pakistani-Muslim, and born and raised in Parsons Green in West London. I wasn’t going to break cover since I was on the job.”
— opening of Her Beautiful Monster

RAVI CHANDRA SINGH is an unlikely candidate for a private detective, and even he’s not sure what he’s doing. A failed religious scholar (he had to leave after a scandal) who’s still obsessed with questions about morality and karma, he finds himself somehow working for the Golden Sentinels Agency, an upmarket but super discreet London firm specializing in solving rich people problems, safeguarding their precious reputations, cleaning up their dirty laundry and taking out the trash, if it comes to that.

But discreetly.

Surprisingly, his co-workers at this presumably blue chip agency are a rainbow coalition of misfits, oddballs and fuck-ups. There’s Ken and Clive, a pair of brutal ex-cops who are also lovers; Mark Chapman, a burned-out pothead genius; Marcie Holder, an annoyingly cheerful former publicist (what’s she on?); Benjamin Lee, a techie prankster from South London; David Okri, an ambitious lawyer from a well-connected Nigerian family; and Olivia Wong, an upper-class Hong Kong financial analyst hiding her true skills as one of the most dangerous hackers in the world. And keeping all the plates spinning are Roger Golden, wheeler-dealer extraordinaire, and his mysterious office manager, Cheryl Hughes.

But it’s not just that Ravi feels over his head with the increasingly bizarre and complex cases to which he’s assigned; cases so high-profile that they never make the headlines. That’s bad enough, but what “really bites his ass” is the woozy, tilt-a-whirl visions he’s been having lately  of Hindu gods mocking him. He’s beginning to think he just might be crazy. Or maybe he really is an unrecognized shaman of the modern world…

I know. It sounds like a Bollywood version of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, pushed through a private eye filter, but even before the first book of the trilogy was published, it had been pegged for television development as a series set to star Sendhil Ramamurthy from NBC’s Heroes.

Unfortunately, it looks like the series never made it past the discussion stage. Too bad. It would have been a hoot. Each book is broken into four standalone cases, but a common thread binds them together… just like a TV show!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adi Tantimedh has a BA in English Literature from Bennington College and an MFA in Film and Television Production from New York University. He is of Chinese-Thai descent and came of age in Singapore and London. He has written radio plays and television scripts for the BBC and screenplays for various Hollywood companies, as well as graphic novels for DC Comics and Big Head Press, and a weekly column about pop culture for BleedingCool.com. He wrote Zinky Boys Go Underground, the first post-Cold War Russian gangster thriller which won the BAFTA for Best Short Film in 1995.

UNDER OATH

  • “Her Nightly Embrace introduces us to an exciting and dynamic new world of storytelling in which spirituality and science are inextricably entwined. Ravi is a character unlike any that readers have quite encountered before, and as he starts to see increasingly wild and fascinating visions, so will those lucky enough to dive into this rich narrative.”
    — Deepak Chopra
  • “With its firecracker box-set pace and spectacular big-budget imagery, Adi Tantimedh’s Her Beautiful Monster is the best high-concept television show you’ve never seen, with hardboiled Hindu gods and two-fisted theology acted out against the treachery, politics and violence of a blisteringly modern digital world. Walking the precarious tightrope between shamus and shaman, Tantimedh’s vivid and divinely beleaguered Ravi is a triumph of the fabulous. Introduce yourself to him immediately.”
    — Alan Moore on Her Beautiful Monster

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Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

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