COWBOYS AND EAST INDIANS, an award-winning short story collection, was Nina McConigley's first book. As the title suggests, many of the included stories explored the culture clash between Indian immigrants and their overwhelmingly white neighbors in the American West, specifically in Wyoming. With her debut novel, HOW TO COMMIT A POSTCOLONIAL MURDER, McConigley continues to explore some of these same themes while connecting them to India's own colonial history, the bonds of sisterhood, and the awkwardness of coming of age.

Set in 1986, the book is narrated by 12-year-old Georgie Ayyar Creel. She and her sister, Agatha Krishna, were born in the small town of Marley, Wyoming, to a white American father and an Indian immigrant mother. Speaking of that colonial history, Georgie and her sister are named by their mother after her favorite (white, British) novelists: Agatha Christie and Georgette Heyer. Georgie herself feels no particular connection to her namesake. Her main attachment is to her sister, who blames the British for all of the divisions and disappointments in their lives.

"Although this slim novel takes on weighty topics, it's both lyrical and surprisingly humorous.... HOW TO COMMIT A POSTCOLONIAL MURDER would be an interesting choice for book groups to pair with Shobha Rao's INDIAN COUNTRY..."

These come to a head when the girls' uncle Vinnie, their mother's brother, brings his family from India, and they all move into the Creel family home, making their house feel too small. They "dipped into our lives like a tea bag into the whiteness of a porcelain cup." Disaffected Auntie Devi and younger cousin Narayan are primarily annoyances, but Uncle Vinnie is far more of a problem. His behavior towards the girls is predatory and abusive, and it leaves them feeling that they have no choice but to (as the title suggests) murder him.

The girls' identity as racial minorities in largely white Marley (epitomized during a camp pageant about Lewis and Clark being led by Sacagawea) is mirrored by their Indian family's history during colonialism and partition. Likewise, if they have any hesitations about seeking revenge on their uncle, it's the fact that he's their mother's last remaining link to her family, a bond that they understand so well. The ways in which these stories play out demonstrate the lasting legacy of childhood trauma and its often unexpected consequences.

Although this slim novel takes on weighty topics, it's both lyrical and surprisingly humorous. Children of the 1980s will especially enjoy the many details of tween lifestyle and fashion that McConigley incorporates, including some teen magazine–style personality quizzes whose topics and answer choices grow increasingly serious (from "How Do You Know if a Boy Likes You?" to "Do You Have What It Takes to Kill?"). But this is also a story about the all-too-fragile bonds between sisters and the near-universal awkwardness of finding one's place while coming of age.

Given its subject matter and setting, HOW TO COMMIT A POSTCOLONIAL MURDER would be an interesting choice for book groups to pair with Shobha Rao's INDIAN COUNTRY, a very different novel that also explores the lives of Indian immigrants in the American West.