TILTING at heavyweights is somewhat like tilting at windmills. Both require a certaindegree of foolhardiness. And to tilt at a heavyweight with the credentials of HenryRaymond Fitzwalter Keating—twice the recipient of the Golden Dagger Award, recipientof the Edgar Award, recipient of the Diamond Dagger Award, the President of the DetectionClub, critic, biographer, author of over 50 books—you get the picture, right?
So here goes my foolhardy pen.
A crime novel set in Bombay, having as its main protagonist an inspector from the crimebranch of the Bombay Police, should gladden the heart of a crime-fiction aficionado livingin Bombay. The book under review, unfortunately, does not. A paper-thin storyline peopledby tissue-thin characters spouting Indian-English-isms throughout. The writing fails togrip, the plotting is indifferent, the conversation often stilted, attempts at satiredon't quite come off, and there is just not enough tension or suspense to sustain thereader's interest. You turn the pages laboriously, not impatiently.
As Inspector Ganesh Ghote stands at one end of the Oval Maidan, under the shade of aRoyal Palm in the sultry October heat of Bombay, brooding over his latest not-too-gloriousassignment, he finds himself lumbered with a companion-in-detection—his old friend,the Swede, Axel Svensson. This big white firinghi, (as Keating insists on referring to himthroughout), unable to face a lonely winter in Sweden, having lost his beloved wife,hot-foots it to India to seek solace for his loneliness among India's colourfulbillion, and promptly insists on being a Watson of sorts to our hero.
In trying to evoke the 'exotica' of Bombay, Keating does not let any clichedstereotype escape him. The reader is bombarded with not-quite-apt references to theRamayana and the Mahabharata, a sadhu or two scattered around, the mandatory hijras, witha leader who looks "not unlike oval-faced Shabana Azmi, the filmstar", beggarswith amputated stumps, rich housewives feeding the obligatory cow on a silver tray, a riotover the movie Fire, references to Shiv Sena, the 'red-light' area, scams galorehinting at thefts of kidneys, hiring of babies for begging, touts harassing/duping/rippingoff the poor unwary white firinghi, etc, etc. It's like Keating has downloaded theentire 'scams to tourists' section from the Lonely Planet Guide, in betweendetailing, with ponderous pedantry, Ghote's painstaking attempts at detection.
Another major irritant which persists throughout the book is the author's notionof Indian English which he puts into the mouth of every character, without discrimination.No doubt some Indians do talk the way Keating makes them—the problem is, in this bookthere's not a single person who does not—not even a widely read columnist, or an'excellent teacher'.
As for Ghote, he appears throughout so utterly mild, so extremely apologetic, sovirtually inept, that it's a relief to discover, midway through the book, that he can'put a small grim smile on to his face'. However, Ghote's is the onlycharacter that is fleshed out enough to be interesting. You may start with a dislike forthe chap but you end up with a sneaking fondness for him. That sensitive cop, yearning forhis own space, insular in his inner world, not too ambitious, decent despite thecorruption around him, no fool though not given to sparks of brilliance, diffident ratherthan aggressive. Quite different from a Bombayite's perception of an inspector fromthe crime branch, yet not quite a caricature.
Ghote manages to get under the reader's skin, despite the irritants; and thereinlies Keating's triumph, and perhaps the explanation for Ghote's longevity incrime fiction. That, unfortunately, is Keating's only triumph, which doesn'tquite succeed in salvaging an otherwise mediocre book.