POCATELLO — Though it is more than 8,000 miles from Pocatello to Southern India, Idaho State University professor and recently published author Alan Johnson transports readers there instantaneously in his novel “Family Plot,” which is now available in paperback on Amazon and on Kindle.

Set in 1985 in the small southern Indian village of Munannai, “Family Plot” revolves around a series of unexplained murders. Charged with performing autopsies on the victims is Dr. Ravi Krishnaswamy, who recently relocated from northern India six months after the Bhopal gas disaster. Krishnaswamy forms an unlikely alliance with Sub-Inspector Muthu Satyamurty, a native of southern India who is Krishnaswamy’s opposite in philosophy as well as region of origin.

The Bhopal gas disaster occurred in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, in late 1984 when a tank at the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant containing 42 tons of liquid methyl isocyanate (MIC) failed, exposing 500,000 residents in nearby towns to highly toxic clouds of MIC gas. It is estimated that the disaster resulted in 3,800 deaths and over 500,000 injuries.

An English professor specializing in post-colonial world literature at ISU, Johnson was born to Protestant missionaries and raised in India. He utilized his expansive knowledge of the region and unique life experiences to bring the murder mystery to life.

“Having grown up there and being, if you will, bi-cultural, I know India,” Johnson said. “(The characters) are from several different states who speak different native languages, so their only medium of communication is English.”

While India’s only official languages are Hindi and English, there are over 20 different languages spoken by the approximately 1.4 billion people who call India home. According to a 2011 census, more than 100 million Indians are fluent in English in addition to their native tongue.

“My parents spoke Gujarati, but I mainly spoke street Hindi,” Johnson said.

English is considered a “glue” language in India and helps ensure the ability to communicate with others regardless of native language, according to Johnson.

Written in his spare time over a period of four years, “Family Plot” took nearly that long again to go from first draft to finished product.

The first directive from the copy editor was to halve the word count, which began at about 110,000 words.

“From the time I finished the long version of the novel to the time it will come out is about three and a half years,” Johnson said. “The whole process takes a long time.”

While its current availability elsewhere is limited to online, a print version of “Family Plot” is set to be released in India by Vishwakarma Publications in mid-February. Johnson said his department is also planning a book release party and book reading, but the time and place for that have not yet been determined.

Johnson says a domestic print release is possible in the future, but will depend on how print copies in India sell.