Vaseem Khan

Inspector Chopra (Retd) is invited, with his baby elephant Ganesha, to travel on a restored train between India and Pakistan, full of diplomats and other luminaries in an effort to broker warmer relations between the neighboring countries, but when the leader of the Indian contingent is murdered, suspicions are high amongst the adversaries and it is up to Chopra to determine the culprit before an international incident is sparked…. This novella, published between the fourth and fifth novels in the Baby Ganesh Agency series, is a showcase for Chopra’s powers of observation, along with Ganesha’s extraordinary qualities including a very precise sense of smell. It isn’t necessary to have read the novels in the series; in fact, this short book might be a great entry into the series as a whole. And, of course, as a novella it is primarily a sidebar to the longer books, but it’s a delight just the same and well worth reading on its own merits; recommended.… (meer)

When an important Parsee is killed on the grounds of the Towers of Silence, where corpses of dead Parsees are left to be devoured by vultures, the police service is eager to declare that a random stranger did the deed and to close the case quickly. The man’s daughter, however, has other ideas and she hires Inspector Chopra (Retd) to investigate further. Soon, Chopra finds himself entangled in the strange world of Parsee society in Mumbai, a religious sect inexplicable to many but one which values social contribution to a large degree, a value the dead man may or may not have honored during his lifetime….This is the fifth Baby Ganesh Agency novel, and like its predecessors it is both cozy, funny and, occasionally, brutally violent; in this case, descriptions of the death-related rituals of a particular religion might be stomach-churning to the unwary reader. Nevertheless, Chopra is a wonderful character and although baby elephant Ganesha doesn’t have as much presence in this book as in some of the previous ones, he is always a delight when he does appear; recommended!… (meer)

Well. Vaseem Khan writes a good pacey yarn, with engaging characters: I'm quite happy for the baddies to be very very bad, because the goodies are not always very very good. Our heroine, Persis, the only female Police Inspector in 1950s India is flawed indeed - headstrong and gauche in equal measure, but we root for her anyway. I very much enjoy this glimpse of life in post-Colonial India, where the undeniable failings of the British are at risk of being replicated by the new Indian elite. This time, Persis has been charged with re-opening the case of an Englishman going to the gallows for the murder of an Indian lawyer and activist. And she has to work quickly and with little backing and support: this man will die soon, and it would be no good discovering that he's innocent once he's dead. Excitement mounts. But. And for me it's a big but. Crisis follows crisis. Persis finds herself in impossible situations time after time. And time after time, improbably provident rescue arrives just at the very last moment. It all gets just a bit too frenetic. Nevertheless, this is a dashing story, a good involving read. Just ... maybe put the brakes on a little bit, Vaseem Khan? Oh, and - let's avoid a spoiler alert. Don't let that letter which Persis writes at the very end of the book get delivered. Please.… (meer)

I think I've found another detective series I can get behind. This series is set in turn-of-the-decade 40s and 50s Bombay, a period when Partition is still leaving a bitter taste, when the British who remain are not necessarily to be trusted. We meet Persis Wadia, India's first female detective. She's prickly, and quick to take offence, but she's had to fight hard to get where she is now, and even harder to retain her place on the ladder. She's based at Malabar House, where all the Police misfits and embarrassments end up. When prominent English diplomat, James Herriot is murdered, the case lands up on her desk . Why? Following clues and intuition, and with the cooperation of English criminalist Archie Blackfinch, she finds the murderer. He even confesses. But did he actually commit the crime? Sometimes convoluted, this is an engaging story that on its way teaches something of the fallout from a chaotic act of Partition. A largely satisfying read.… (meer)