Media and Press Information
Contact Info
For press inquiries about Under Lock & Skeleton Key, The Raven Thief, or A Midnight Puzzle please contact Kayla Janas at St. Martin’s Press.
Representation
Literary Agents: Gigi is represented by Jill Marsal of the Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.
Click to download Gigi’s high resolution headshot.
Media
High resolution headshot of Gigi Pandian (credit Susan Parman).
High resolution cover of Under Lock & Skeleton Key.
High resolution cover of The Raven Thief.
High resolution cover of A Midnight Puzzle.
SHORT Bio
Gigi Pandian is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning mystery author, breast cancer survivor, and locked-room mystery enthusiast. The child of academics from New Mexico and the southern tip of India, she spent her childhood being dragged around the world on their research trips, which inspired her fiction. She’s been awarded Agatha, Anthony, Lefty, and Derringer awards, and been a finalist for the Edgar. She writes the Secret Staircase mysteries, Accidental Alchemist mysteries, and Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mysteries.
Medium Bio
Gigi Pandian is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning mystery author, breast cancer survivor, and locked-room mystery enthusiast. The child of academics from New Mexico and the southern tip of India, she spent her childhood being dragged around the world on their research trips, which inspired her fiction. She now lives in northern California with her husband and a gargoyle who watches over the garden. Gigi writes the Secret Staircase mysteries, Accidental Alchemist mysteries, Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mysteries, and locked-room mystery short stories. Her debut novel, Artifact, was awarded a Malice Domestic Grant and named a “Best of 2012” Debut Novel by Suspense Magazine, and her fiction has received Agatha, Anthony, Lefty, and Derringer Awards, and been a finalist for the Edgar Award. Along with Kellye Garrett and Walter Mosley, she’s one of the co-founders of Crime Writers of Color.
Gigi’s latest Accidental Alchemist novel, The Alchemist of Monsters and Mayhem, was published in October 2023. Her first Secret Staircase mystery, Under Lock & Skeleton Key, was published by Minotaur Books in March 2022, garnering multiple starred reviews and called “wildly entertaining” by the New York Times Book Review. Her 2024 releases are the third Secret Staircase Mystery, A Midnight Puzzle (March 2024), and the eighth Accidental Alchemist Mystery, The Alchemist of Brushstrokes and Brimstone (October 2024).
LONG BIO
USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Gigi Pandian is the child of academics from New Mexico and the southern tip of India. She spent her childhood being dragged around the world on their research trips, which inspired her fiction. She now lives in northern California with her husband and a gargoyle who watches over the backyard vegetable garden. Gigi writes the Secret Staircase mysteries, Accidental Alchemist mysteries, Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mysteries, and locked-room mystery short stories.
Gigi’s debut novel, Artifact, was awarded a Malice Domestic Grant and named a “Best of 2012” Debut Novel by Suspense Magazine. Her subsequent fiction has received awards including the Lefty Award for The Accidental Alchemist, the Left Coast Crime Rose Award for Pirate Vishnu, the Agatha Award for “The Library Ghost of Tanglewood Inn,” the Derringer Award for “The Cambodian Curse,” and the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original for The Alchemist’s Illusion. In 2022, her novelette “The Locked Room Library” was a finalist for the Edgar Award.
Gigi began writing mysteries as a kid, when she’d entertaining herself on her parents’ academic trips. Many years later, while working on her own PhD, she realized that she was much better suited to writing about the fictional adventures of academics than being one herself. She left academia for art school and began writing the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mysteries about a globe-trotting Indian-American historian (Artifact, Pirate Vishnu, Quicksand, Michelangelo’s Ghost, The Ninja’s Illusion, and The Glass Thief).
A month after her 36th birthday, Gigi was diagnosed with breast cancer. To get through her treatments, she decided to throw herself into her writing. She came up with the idea for her Accidental Alchemist mysteries (The Accidental Alchemist, The Masquerading Magician, The Elusive Elixir, The Alchemist’s Illusion, novella The Lost Gargoyle of Paris, The Alchemist of Fire and Fortune, The Alchemist of Riddle and Ruin, The Alchemist of Monsters and Mayhem, and The Alchemist of Brushstrokes and Brimstone) while going through chemotherapy, her own Elixir of Life. She never imagined her agent would be able to sell the quirky paranormal mystery series about a centuries-old female alchemist and her impish gargoyle sidekick, but the series sold quickly, so there must have been something to the passion that flowed from her fingertips while battling cancer.
Gigi is now 12 years cancer free. On her post-cancer celebratory writing retreat, she began working on a novel about a character that wouldn’t stay out of her head—Tempest Raj—but it took her several years to figure out how to tell Tempest’s story. In 2020, Gigi signed a book deal with St. Martin’s Minotaur Books, at auction, to write her new Secret Staircase mystery series starring Tempest Raj. The series kicked off with Under Lock & Skeleton Key, published in March 2022, followed by The Raven Thief and A Midnight Puzzle. The Library Game will be out in March 2025.
Gigi has served on the National and Northern California boards of Sisters in Crime, the board of Mystery Writers of America’s Northern California chapter, was a Pitch Wars mentor, and is an avid participant in National Novel Writing Month. Along with Kellye Garrett and Walter Mosley, she’s one of the co-founders of Crime Writers of Color.
When not writing, Gigi can be found experimenting with new plant-based recipes in the kitchen, traveling, or curled up with a good book (her favorite authors include Elizabeth Peters, Aaron Elkins, John Dickson Carr, Juliet Blackwell, Andrew Mayne, and Deanna Raybourn).
Literary AWARDS
The Raven Thief is currently nominated for Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel and the Lefty Award for Best Mystery.
Anthony Award for The Alchemist’s Illusion
William F. Deeck Malice Domestic Grant for Artifact
“Best of 2012” Debut Mystery from Suspense Magazine for Artifact
Rose Award for Pirate Vishnu
Lefty Award for The Accidental Alchemist
“Best of 2016” Cozy Mystery from Suspense Magazine for Michelangelo’s Ghost
Agatha Award for “The Library Ghost of Tanglewood Inn”
Derringer Award for “The Cambodian Curse”
Finalist for Edgar, Agatha, Macavity, and Anthony Awards for “The Locked Room Library”
Other nominations: Michelangelo’s Ghost was a finalist for both Left Coast Crime’s Lefty Award and Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion Award. The Ninja’s Illusion was long-listed for the ALA (American Library Association) 2018 Reading List. “The Hindi Houdini” was a finalist for Agatha and Macavity awards. The Alchemist’s Illusion was a finalist for the G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award.