Collections
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| What You Don’t Know: Ten tales of obsession, mystery and murder in Southeast Asia | 2016 | Buy |
Standalone Novels
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Hanoi Jane | 2011 | Buy |
| Saigon Dark | 2017 | Buy |
| Killer Coin | 2020 | Buy |
| A Friend Indeed | 2024 | Buy |
Toby Wong Mystery
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Divorce Is Murder | 2019 | Buy |
Elka Ray was born in the UK and raised in Victoria, British Columbia. Her fiction has covered considerable ground across both tone and geography. Her early novels, Hanoi Jane (2011) and Saigon Dark (2016), are set in Vietnam, one a lighter romantic mystery about an American reporter, the other a darker psychological thriller about a woman living with a dangerous secret. The short story collection What You Don’t Know (2016) also draws on Southeast Asia.
Her Toby Wong Mystery series returns to her Canadian roots. The series features Toby Wong, a Chinese-Canadian divorce lawyer in Victoria who gets pulled into murder investigations that involve people from her own past. Divorce Is Murder, the first book, introduces Toby alongside her fortune-teller mother and pregnant best friend, and the tone sits comfortably between cozy mystery and romantic suspense.
Ray’s most recent standalone, A Friend Indeed (2024), marks a shift toward psychological suspense. Set in a Pacific Northwest town, it follows a single mother covering up what her childhood friend has done, and the cover-up starts to come apart under pressure from a blackmailer. The book is notably darker than the Toby Wong entries and signals a broader range in Ray’s fiction.