The Red Fort Murders

Stabbings, strangling, attar, kababs and a married Muzaffar Jang, these are just some of the ingredients of Crimson City. Madhulika Liddle has managed to make Shah Jahan’s Dilli her crime city of choice—apt because in the 17th century, Dilli was one of the world's biggest power centres, a buzzing melting pot of div­erse peoples from Asia and beyond the continent. Crimson City starts with a slow build-up; no murder to open the story. We are in Shah Jahan’s royal court, the issue being a prima­r­ily Muslim nobility grumb­ling over innate differen­ces with their Hindu  colleagues. Most naturally, this will have most readers prick up their ears and say, “Ah ha! She’s doing that trending thing.” The theme rec­urs throughout the story, ending with Sarmad, Dara Shikoh’s somewhat controversial friend, who believed in no religion at all.

Having set the background, Liddle brings in the first of the corpses, that of a merchant who is found bloody among a welter of papers. Before Muzaffar Jang can involve himself in the investigation, his brother-in-law, the kotwal Khan Sahib, forbids him from meddling in kotwali procedure, which puts a stumbling block in Jang’s path (contemporary echoes again). This impasse gives readers an interesting puzzle to mull over—how can a detective investigate when he has been clearly told not to by the man he reveres most? Jang develops a kind of complex over the spoken ban and deliberately refuses to interfere, except on the few occasions when he just cannot help himself.

Liddle toys with structure, crisscrossing the threads and throwing in another mystery, that of a kidnapped toddler, which Jang solves in a flash of deductive brilliance, since that is not forbidden territory. But, predictably, matters with his brother-in-law the Kotwal Sahib get worse—the enraged policeman tells him clea­rly that Muzaffar Jang makes the Dilli police force look like bumblers and throws him out of his house. To make matters worse, murders begin to pile up and, except for one, they seem to be linked in some curious way. Again, familiar territory.

The author gives herself neat little ways around the scenario that she has built up—bringing back the flamboyant Akram Khan to act as a stalking horse for Muzaffar Jang, for instance, or using Shireen for some undercover work. Crimson City, despite its serial murders, is slow to pick up pace, though the details of life in 1697 make for delightful reading, along with tidbits of exotic att­ars concocted in Kanauj.

There are questions in Crimson City, trivial or otherwise, that remain unanswered—why, for example, does the Kotwal Sahib ove­rreact? There seems to be no overt challenge to his handling of cases. Where does the gossipy maid disappear, having orchestrated much of the action? Why is Shireen so wishy-washy after her first promising appearance in Engra­ved in Stone—though one could put that down to the fact that she is newly married.

Liddle is good with her smoke and mirrors plotline and it is difficult to guess where she is going with all the grisly murders rocking the great city—especially with Jang’s hands tied for almost two-thirds of the book. This is as it should be. But at the same time, there are the obvious glitches too—the mysterious sticky laddoo, for example, that the baby Nandu is mumbling over, Ameena’s confident nosing around when she first appears and the matter of the palanquin that contains no one except the beauteous Niloufer. Despite these, Crimson City will certainly not disappoint Muzaffar Jang fans—except one word, do try and be a bit patient with Khan Sahib!