In The St Hilda's Spotlight: - Abir Mukherjee

 

Name:- Abir Mukherjee

Job:- author (and former accountant)

Twitter:- @radiomukhers

Website :- https://abirmukherjee.com 

Introduction:-

Abir Mukherjee is a Hamilton raised former accountant turned crime writer of the Times bestselling author of the Wyndham & Banerjee series of crime novels set in Raj-era India. His books have won numerous awards including the CWA Dagger for best Historical Novel, the Prix du Polar Européen (A Rising Man), the Wilbur Smith Award for Adventure Writing (A Necessary Evil) and the Amazon Publishing Readers Award for E-book for the Year.

His first book A Rising Man (2016) was shortlisted for the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year Award in 2018. It was also both the Waterstones' Thriller of the Month and the Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month in May 2017. It also won the CWA Endevour Historical Dagger, a Barry Award and the Jhalak Prize. It also won the Harvill Secker and Daily Telegraph crime writing competition. His second book A Necessary Evil was published in 2017 and was also nominated for Gold Dagger and a Barry Award,

His third book Smoke and Ashes (2018), the fourth book was also shorlisted for the CWA Sapere Historical Dagger and the HWA (Historical Writers Association) Gold Crown and longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger. Death in The East (2019 )was also won the CWA Sapere Historical Dagger and was also a Sunday Times books of 2021 pick. Shadows of Men (2021) shortlisted for the Gold Dagger. Alongside fellow author, Vaseem Khan, he also hosts the popular Red Hot Chilli Writers podcast,

Current book? (This can either be the current book that you are reading or writing)

I’m currently reading The Black Drop by Leonora Nattrass, set in the London of the 1790s on the brink of revolution and possible war with America.

Favourite book?

Only ever one choice: Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell

Which two characters would you invite to dinner and why? 

Bernie Gunther and Arkady Renko – two anti-heroes from different countries, both beaten down, but both linked by that thread of common decency. I think both of them would appreciate a good meal and neither would judge my cooking abilities too harshly.

How do you relax?

My feet up, some good music and a glass of whisky.

Which book do you wish you had written and why? 

Razorblade Tears by S A Cosby – It’s a fantastic concept and a brilliant book. It’s the sort of thing I wish I could write.

What would you say to your younger self if you were just starting out as a writer.

Have more self-confidence. Start earlier. Don’t spend twenty years of your life being an accountant!

How would you describe your series characters? 

Sam Wyndham is a tired, jaded ex Scotland Yard detective who takes a job in Calcutta as it’s slightly preferable to suicide. Surendranath Banerjee (known as Surrender-not by his linguistically challenged British superiors) is a clever, idealistic, young detective who puts Sam on a pedestal – at least until he works with him. They develop an odd, but close friendship, solving crimes while negotiating the racial tensions of the closing decades of the Raj.

With Town and Country: Green Lanes to Mean Streets being the theme at St Hilda's this year, Where is your favourite town and where is your favourite country? Why have you chosen these?

My favourite town has to be Kolkata (Calcutta) – it’s not an easy place to live, but once you see beyond the surface, you discover a place of art and culture and humour and love and vibrancyto rival anywhere in the world.

As for my favourite country – right now I’m still basking in the glow of returning from a trip to Polignano in the south of Italy and so, I’d have to say Italy – for the food, the wine, the climate and the good friends I’ve made there.

What are you looking forward to at St Hilda's?

The stimulating debate, the wonderful lectures and the sheer fun of hanging out with people who love crime fiction.

The Shadows of Men by Abir Mukherjee (Vintage Publishing) Out Now

Calcutta, 1923. When a Hindu theologian is found murdered in his home, the city is on the brink of all-out religious war. Can officers of the Imperial Police Force, Captain Sam Wyndham and Sergeant Surendranath Banerjee track down those responsible in time to stop a bloodbath? Set at a time of heightened political tension, beginning in atmospheric Calcutta and taking the detectives all the way to bustling Bombay, the latest instalment in this 'unmissable series presents Wyndham and Banerjee with an unprecedented challenge. Will this be the case that finally drives them apart?

Information about 2022 St Hilda's College Crime Fiction Weekend and how to book tickets can be found here.

Ajay Chowdhury on The Road to The Waiter

A disgraced Kolkata copper working as a waiter in Brick Lane gets drawn into a web of murder and deceit. This idea had been percolating inside me for a couple of decades. One day, I heard that Harvill Secker and Bloody Scotland were running a competition for debut crime writers which meant that I might have a shot at being published. That was the motivation I needed to make me sit down and actually start typing the opening.

Like many of my generation, I’d grown up in India with Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, Perry Mason and Sherlock Holmes, however the only Indian detective I’d come across was Inspector Ganesh Ghote – H R F Keating’s marvellous creation. I liked Ghote, but he was as much of a caricature as Poirot (and famously Harry Keating didn’t even visit India until after he had written eight books about Ghote and Bombay!) So I’d always hankered after a ‘real’ Indian detective at work – someone I could see a bit of myself in, if you like.

My original idea was to have my copper come from Sylhet in Bangladesh because a lot of cooks and waiters in Indian restaurants in the UK are actually Bangladeshi and most of them hail from Sylhet. However, as I started writing, I realised I was falling into the same trap that Keating had – I’ve never been to Bangladesh. So, I switched tack and made him a Bengali from Kolkata, which I could write about with some sense of authenticity, having grown up there. 

I also needed him to have a foil and sidekick – the Watson to his Holmes (although Anjoli, his foil in the book, would NOT be happy being described as such). I was keen to have it be an ethnically Indian woman, again to explore life in Britain from a different angle. As I wrote, their chemistry grew, and she became almost as important a character in the book as Kamil, my protagonist.

So, what’s the book about? Kamil Rahman is a high flyer in the Kolkata CID when he is given his first big case to run – the murder of a major Bollywood star. As he investigates, he discovers a murky world of sleaze, corruption and politicking, and as he digs deeper, he falls foul of some powerful people and gets thrown out of the force. He moves to London to lick his wounds and the only job he can get is as a waiter in a restaurant in Brick Lane, working with the owner’s daughter Anjoli. Working a birthday party for an industrialist in Hampstead, he finds the millionaire dead in his pool and starts to investigate the death, helped by Anjoli. Slowly the strands come together and the climax leaves Kamil questioning a lot of what he believed.

The book changed a great deal as I wrote it. My original conception of it had been a light read – somewhat akin to Alexander McCall Smith’s Precious Ramotswe books. But Kamil refused to be a warm, gregarious, empathetic detective like Mma Ramotswe, instead turning out to be far more tetchy, ambitious and insecure. The book also became far darker and funnier than I had originally intended – in fact the only things that remained from my original idea was the concept of the disgraced detective as a fish out of water in London and the food that permeates the book.

And that was the other thing I wanted to do. I love cooking and eating Indian food, and really wanted to bring to life a lot of the cuisine and more unusual Indian fare that I adore. I enjoyed writing about the food that Kamil was serving and the dishes he longed for as he sat in his tiny room in cold, rainy London – missing the warmth and sun of Kolkata.

I have been incredibly lucky. Not only did I win the Harvill Secker competition and the publishing deal, they have, incredibly, bought the next two books in the series as well – The Chef and The Detective. The final cherry on the cake was BBC Studios optioning the book, so who knows, we may see Kamil and Anjoli on screen some day, serving Kashmiri Rogan Josh and Chicken Berry Pulao in Tandoori Knights.

The Waiter by Ajay Chowdhury (Vintage Publishing) Out Now 

Kamil Rahman, disgraced detective, turned waiter, is about to find himself embroiled in a case that might just change his life ... for better or for worse. Ex-detective Kamil Rahman moves from Kolkata to London to start afresh as a waiter in an Indian restaurant. But the day he caters an extravagant party for his boss's rich and powerful friend, the peace of his simple new life is shattered. The event is a success, the food is delicious, but later that evening the host, Rakesh, is found dead in his swimming pool. Suspicion falls on Rakesh's young and glamorous new wife, Neha, and Kamil is called to investigate for the family, with the help of his boss's daughter Anjoli. Kamil and Anjoli prove a winning team - but as the investigation progresses, and their relationship grows, Kamil struggles to keep memories of the case that destroyed his career in Kolkata at bay. Little does he know that his past will soon catch up with him in some very unexpected ways.

Photo credit -  Angelina Melwani 

Trisha Sakhlecha On Teenage Friendships and Thrillers

 

When I set out to write my second novel, my main aim was to write the kind of book I like to read: a fast-paced, twisty thriller with deeply buried secrets and complex female characters. I wanted to write about an intense, intoxicating friendship where the emotional stakes are high and the consequences of any fallout catastrophic. And as any woman will tell you, there are few periods in a woman’s life as emotionally charged as adolescence and few relationships as intense and pivotal as the friendships we forge in those heady teenage years.  There is a kind of energy, a rawness of emotion that comes with being at an age when you’re full of hormones that makes every snide comment, every small betrayal feel colossal and life altering.

I’m not the only author to be seduced by the mercurial highs and lows of early friendships. The volatility of teenage friendship, particularly teenage female friendship is often explored in psychological thrillers. Why? At its best, a teenage friendship can be enlightening and supportive, intense and joyful, the experience of finding a new best friend a lot like that of falling in love. But underneath the strawberry-flavoured lip-gloss and heartfelt promises to stay friends forever, there are often layers of anger, insecurity, guilt and conflicting loyalties to be found. When a friendship turns sour, with hormones and insecurities running high, the results are often catastrophic.

A group of close girlfriends is fertile breeding ground for deep-seated resentments, bitter competition and simmering jealousies, particularly when a new girl enters an established group and upsets the existing hierarchy. Everyone has a tipping point. The question is who will reach that tipping point first? And when they do, who will they unleash their rage on and to what effect? Boys might fight but girls engage in far subtler and infinitely more damaging forms of torment. Subtle comments, misinterpreted actions, and petty arguments can lead to dangerous, even fatal consequences that reverberate far into the future.

All of which makes for great drama and serves up the two crucial elements of a taut psychological thriller: high stakes and a sense of urgency and inevitability.

As adults we’re all haunted by our adolescence. We look for ways to go back and make sense of the moments that dictated our futures. In Can You See Me Now?, my protagonist Alia finds herself continually drawn back to her adolescence and to the intense, claustrophobic friendship she shared with Sabah, the strait-laced queen bee who repelled and dazzled in equal measure and Noor, the mercurial force who unleashed in Alia a hunger that still drives her years later. She is haunted by a secret so dark, it has the power to destroy everything she’s worked for and so alluring, she can’t bear to leave it alone.

The result, I hope, is a psychological thriller so compelling that it keeps you up long past your bedtime as well as a story that investigates what happens when teenage restlessness and ambition collide and when friends who once loved each other find themselves capable of dark and devastating deceit.

Trisha Sakhlecha is the author of Can You See Me Now? Published in February 2021 by Pan Macmillan

Can You See Me Now is a gripping psychological suspense thriller about a young Indian woman, now a government minister, whose past secrets are about to reverberate into the present and shatter her life. Fifteen years ago, three sixteen-year-old girls meet at Wescott, an exclusive private school in India. Two, Sabah and Noor, are the most popular girls in their year. One, Alia, is a new arrival from England, who feels her happiness depends on their acceptance. Before she knows it, Sabah and Noor's intoxicating world of privilege and intimacy opens up to Alia and, for the first time, after years of neglect from her parents, she feels she is exactly where, and with whom, she belongs.  But with intimacy comes jealousy, and with privilege, resentment, and Alia finds that it only takes one night for her bright new world to shatter around her. Now Alia, a cabinet minister in the Indian government, is about to find her secrets have no intention of staying buried ...

Alec Marsh on Enemy of The Raj

 

I decided to set my new Drabble and Harris novel, Enemy of Raj, against the backdrop of British India because, as well as making for a thoroughly entertaining thriller, I wanted to explore the phenomenon of the Raj.

The history of Britain in India, which one can date from the formation of the East India Company in 1600 (through grant of a charter by Elizabeth I) right up until 1947 when the country gained independence, is longer than most people probably realise and reflects the rise and decline of Britain as a world power. 

But the long association and the relative amicability of post-colonial relations obscures a genuinely troubling narrative, (one that William Dalrymple, for example, has done an important job in exposing in his recent book The Anarchy). Importantly, therefore, I also wanted Enemy of the Raj to be an opportunity to debunk the prevalent swathe of nostalgia about British rule in India – what one might call the Merchant Ivory view of history. 

It was not the benign costume drama depicted in popular culture. It was as most know already, a thoroughly ghastly and morally repugnant example of societal exploitation, the dominance of one culture over another. Not only that but it’s one that when it reached its zenith in the early 1900s was based on pretty diabolical notions of white racial superiority, the consequences of which we are still living with today as the BLM campaign this summer has highlighted.

And in this, the title of the book is particularly deliberate – for today, we are all enemies of the Raj. But when the story is was set in 1937 supporting the Raj was an absolutely respectable position. Don’t forget that when Winston Churchill became prime minister in 1940 he declared that he had not ‘become the King’s first minster in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire’. And when he said that he chiefly had India in mind. 

So it was important for me that the book correctly locates the British where they were in the 1930s – which is, I’m afraid to say, on the wrong side of history. 

But when you consider that 100,000 Brits were running India – which then had a population of 300 million – you realise it’s not a simple matter at all. 

For a start, 100,000 Brits can’t all be bad. In the book, I have several British colonial figures, many of whom I firmly believe to be a thoroughly good people – really no different to you or me – but doing what is bad work, as diligently and efficiently as he could. But understanding that perfectly decent, ordinary people can be involved in collective evils and behave monstrously is a vitally important part of understanding how things like the Raj – or horrors such as the Holocaust or the transatlantic slave trade for that matter – can come about. 

So, notwithstanding the fact that Enemy of the Raj is primarily an entertainment (as Graham Greene put it) and is conceived as a gripping, light thriller, there is a very serious point that I wanted to highlight.

The second book in the Drabble and Harris series (the first was Rule Britannia, published last year) story follows London newspaperman Sir Percival Harris (he hates his first name and is known simply as Harris) and his old friend Ernest Drabble, a Cambridge professor of history and amateur mountaineer, in India to interview a famous (and real life) maharaja, named Sir Ganga Singh. Pretty quickly after arriving in Delhi, however, they discover that forces are at work and soon they become involved in an audacious assassination plot...

As well as offering an opportunity to demonstrate the unpleasant side to the whole matter, the story also offers the opportunity to indulge in counterfactual speculations. In an early conversation with another (pro-empire) British journalist they discuss how long British rule has got left. Now, we all know the game was up in 1947, but the outlook in the late 1930s didn’t look like that. The British journalist in the story then suggests that Britain could possibly hang on until 1984 – ‘If we play our cards right.’

Playing our cards right included decades of policies which deliberately sought to divide Hindu and Muslim opinion, to play one set of communities off against another. This ultimately led to the appalling massacres of partition in 1947 when up to two million were killed and 14 million people displaced. As the late historian Norman Stone remarked, when empires fail, bad things happen. But in this case the British were complicit – unwittingly or otherwise.

During one argument in the book, Drabble – who is a good old fashioned leftie and very much the voice of today – asks Harris, a dyed in the wool imperialist, how far he would be prepared to go to maintain British rule in India? Would he shoot people?

The moment he’s confronted with this Harris knows the game is up – he’s not going to pull the trigger. But it takes something else to happen to him before he can admit it to himself because, after all, he’s been indoctrinated with the racial superiority nonsense.

But admit it he does. And in the same way I tend to agree with those who say that Britain still has some way to go before it admits to itself properly that what was done by our forefathers in India was wrong. Even if many of them were thoroughly decent people, just like you and me. 

Enemy of the Raj by Alec Marsh is published by Headline Accent priced £9.99 in original paperback and available as an ebook

India, 1937. Intrepid reporter Sir Percival Harris is hunting tigers with his friend, Professor Ernest Drabble. Harris soon bags a man-eater - but later finds himself caught up in a hunt of a different kind... Harris is due to interview the Maharaja of Bikaner, a friend to the Raj, for his London newspaper - and he and Drabble soon find themselves accompanied by a local journalist, Miss Heinz. But is the lady all she seems? And the Maharaja himself is proving elusive... Meanwhile, the movement for Indian independence is becoming stronger, and Drabble and Harris witness some of the conflict first-hand. But even more drama comes on arrival at Bikaner when the friends find themselves confined to their quarters... and embroiled in an assassination plot! Just who is the enemy in the Maharaja's palace? What is the connection to a mysterious man Drabble meets in Delhi? And what secret plans do the British colonial officers have up their sleeves?

In The Spotlight: Vaseem Khan

Name: Vaseem Khan

Job: Author

Website:-www.vaseemkhan.com

Twitter: @VaseemKhanUK

Vaseem Khan is the author of the bestselling Baby Ganesh Agency series featuring Indian detective Ashwin Chopra and his baby elephant sidekick. The first book in the series, The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, was a Times bestseller and a Waterstones Paperback of the Year. The second won the Shamus Award in the US. In 2018, he was awarded the Eastern Eye Arts, Culture and Theatre Award for Literature. Vaseem was born in London, but spent a decade working in India. 

Current book?

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. This book won the Pulitzer Prize and you can see why. A satirical masterpiece, written with verve, flair and extraordinary skill, the novel follows a Vietnamese double-agent forced to flee Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, and finding that life in 1970s America is not quite what he has been led to believe. The book slaughters both American and Vietnamese cultural icons, exposing the hypocrisy and lies that characterise that turbulent time in the history of the two nations. Wickedly funny. (Also I have crippling literary pretensions, and love high quality literary fiction.

Favourite book?

Snow Falling on Cedars. A historical crime novel written to a literary standard, this book examines the murder of an American on a small fishing island by a Japanese local. The plot is complicated by the fact that both men grew up as friends before becoming enemies when WW2 broke out and Japanese Americans found themselves placed into internment camps. 

Which two characters would you invite to dinner and why?

Sauron (a.k.a the Dark Lord) from Lord of the Rings. I’ve always wondered why he was so angry. I think all he really needed was a cuddle and a decent curry. It would also be nice to have Bernie Gunther at the table. I am a recent convert to these WW2 Germany-set crime novels by Phillip Kerr. Bernie Gunther is brilliantly drawn, a cynical, hardboiled detective, harking back to the novels of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett (I love Sam Spade and Phillip Marlow – especially as played by Humphrey Bogart). He is part of the German machine, often morally compromised, yet at the same time contemptuous of its hateful rhetoric and actions. He’d be a good laugh I reckon.

How do you relax?

I play cricket. Badly. Also planning complex murders is very relaxing, I’ve found.

What book do you wish you had written and why?

Presumed Innocent. Lawyer Scott Turow’s debut was one of the great crime novels of the last century, rightly selling millions of copies and inspiring a fantastic Harrison Ford film. I enjoyed the novel, principally because I love Turow’s precise, lyrically formal prose. Each sentence is like finely spun wool. And that killer twist at the end!

What would you say to your younger self if you were just starting out as a writer.

Murder a few people. Because authenticity has suddenly become everything in publishing. It’s all about proving that you have the right to write something… (rolls eyes, sighs loudly, makes a rude noise)

How would you describe your series character?

Inspector Chopra made his debut in The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra the first book of the Baby Ganesh Agency series. The book went on to become a Times bestseller and set the foundation for the series. Chopra is forced into retirement from the Mumbai Police Force in his late forties but cannot seem to let go of his desire to see justice done in a country where, frankly, if you have wealth and influence you can get away with anything – up to and including murder. A thoroughly decent man, one who believes in old-fashioned policing, and an even older-fashioned moral incorruptibility, he slogs his way through murders, robberies and kidnappings in one of the world’s most colourful cities – all with a baby elephant in tow. The relationship between Chopra and this unusual sidekick (Ganesha) allows me to weave in some gentle humour in between the gritty depictions of modern Mumbai and various dark crimes.

Bad Day at the Vulture Club, the latest book in the Baby Ganesh Agency series, focuses on the murder of a wealthy Parsee in Mumbai's notorious Towers of Silence where the Parsee dead are left to be eaten by vultures. Vaseem’s next book (out in August 2020) will be the start of a new series. Midnight at Malabar House, set in 1950 in Bombay, introduces Persis Wadia, India’s first female police detective, as she attempts to unravel the murder of a prominent British diplomat. 

Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan (Published by Hodder & Stoughton) Out Now

Bombay, New Year's Eve, 1949. As India celebrates the arrival of a momentous new decade, Inspector Persis Wadia stands vigil in the basement of Malabar House, home to the city's most unwanted unit of police officers. Six months after joining the force she remains India's first female police detective, mistrusted, sidelined and now consigned to the midnight shift. And so, when the phone rings to report the murder of prominent English diplomat Sir James Herriot, the country's most sensational case falls into her lap. As 1950 dawns and India prepares to become the world's largest republic, Persis, accompanied by Scotland Yard criminalist Archie Blackfinch, finds herself investigating a case that is becoming more political by the second. Navigating a country and society in turmoil, Persis, smart, stubborn and untested in the crucible of male hostility that surrounds her, must find a way to solve the murder - whatever the cost.

Jewel Heists – the Crown Jewels of Crime Fiction by Vaseem Khan

In my latest novel The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown, book 2 in the Baby Ganesh Detective Agency series, Inspector Ashwin Chopra (Retd) is on the trail of the legendary Koh-i-noor diamond, aided by his sidekick, one-year-old baby elephant Ganesha. 

The Koh-i-noor, once the world’s most valuable jewel, was originally mined in India, ‘appropriated’ by the British during the Raj, and gifted to Queen Victoria, who had it installed in the British Crown Jewels. In my book the Koh-i-noor is brought to Mumbai for a special exhibition where it is promptly stolen in a daring heist from a heavily guarded room.

Fanciful? Not really.

The theft of priceless jewels has been surprisingly common throughout the ages. Indeed, if Hollywood is anything to go by, it is a fairly straightforward endeavor: a gang of misfits, a little planning, some crafty tech wizardry, an insider or two, and Bob-the-jewel-thief’s your uncle.

One only has to look at some of the best known heists down the ages: In 1983 Brinx Mat robbers made away with three tons of gold bullion, and a large volume of uncut diamonds they hadn’t even known were there; 1994, Cannes, France – $60m worth of gems were stolen from the Carlton Hotel when robbers came in spraying bullets – police later discovered there were no bullet holes anywhere: the guns were fakes. In Dec 2002, $12m dollars of diamonds vanished from the Museon in The Hague, in spite of motion sensors, CCTV, and 24hr security guards. To this day, no one has any idea how the robbery was carried out.

Of course, not all would-be jewel heisters are so successful.

In 2000 thieves burst into London’s Millennium Dome, armed to the gills, in an attempt to steal $700m worth of diamonds. Sadly for them, the authorities had been tipped off, and were on hand – dressed as cleaners – to take down the hapless miscreants.

Real-life attempts have even been made to steal the Crown Jewels, most notably by Irishman Thomas Blood back in the seventeenth century. Disguised as a parson, Blood befriended ‘Keeper of the Jewels’ Talbot Edwards at the Tower of London. On 9th May 1671, 'Parson Blood' arrived with his 'nephew'. While the 'nephew' was getting acquainted with his daughter Edwards led the way to the Jewels for a private viewing. Blood promptly knocked him cold with a mallet then, to add injury to injury, stabbed him with a sword. Blood attempted to make off with a crown, scepter and orb – all stuffed down his breeches – but the fleeing faux parson was swiftly arrested. In custody Blood stated: "I'll answer to none but the King himself". His Irish charm and King Charles’ well-known liking for audacious scoundrels earned him a royal pardon.

In my novel, the thieves are somewhat more successful, making off with the Koh-i-noor, once the world’s most famous diamond, a legendary jewel that, over the centuries, has cursed those who have attempted to possess it. With the British and Indian governments at each other’s throats over the matter, Inspector Chopra is tasked to solve a puzzling locked-room mystery, once again weaving his way through the vibrant, enigmatic backdrop of modern India.

The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown is out in paperback on March 23rd, and includes a bonus short story: Murder on Elephanta Island.

For centuries the Koh-i-Noor diamond has set man against man and king against king. Now part of the British Crown Jewels, the priceless gem is a prize that many have killed to possess. So when the Crown Jewels go on display in Mumbai, security is everyone’s principal concern. And yet, on the very day Inspector Chopra visits the exhibition, the diamond is stolen from under his nose. The heist was daring and seemingly impossible. The hunt is on for the culprits. But it soon becomes clear that only one man – and his elephant – can possibly crack this case …

You can find more information about the author and his books on his website.  You can also follow him on Twitter @VaseemKhanUK and on Facebook.

Why a crime fighting elephant in Mumbai needs courage, curiosity . . . and chocolate

Today’s guest blog is by debut author Vaseem Khan. By day he is the Business Development Director for the Department of Security and Crime Science and the national Security Science Doctoral Research Training Centre at University College London (UCL).  The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra is the first in the series of the Baby Ganesh Detective Agency novels set in India.

The long and varied history of the crime novel has witnessed crime fighters of every shape, size and disposition, ranging from a fastidious little Francophone Belgian whose head was ‘exactly the shape of an egg’ to a ‘rotund, badly-dressed Catholic priest’. Both Poirot and Father Brown are established stars in the literary firmament, but in my debut novel The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, Mumbai police Inspector Ashwin Chopra - forced into early retirement and unable to relinquish the final case of his career – the death of a poor local boy - is confronted by the somewhat surreal dilemma of taking in a baby elephant, sent to him by his enigmatic uncle. The elephant – one-year-old Ganesha - soon proves to be a more than useful ally as Chopra sets off to tackle the case, and thus becomes the latest in a long line of colourful crime fighters to have graced the genre.  

Fans of the novel have asked me why I chose an elephant as Chopra’s sidekick. Aside from the fact that I am passionate about these amazing animals, there are some very practical reasons why a pachyderm makes a more-than-competent crime-fighter.

Elephants are supremely intelligent creatures, one of just a few who are legitimately classified as being ‘self-aware’ (meaning that, at the least, they pass the ‘mirror test’). They also possess excellent memories, a trait that has been well documented, and amply employed by such renowned detectives as Inspector Morse – elephants really do not forget. Elephants are also known for their complex social interactions and ability to feel empathy. As a writer this emotional range is important to me – part of the charm of my series (as readers have expressed to me) lies in the relationship that gradually develops between the somewhat rigid and stiff-shelled Chopra and the, at first, despondent infant elephant that has been vouchsafed to his care.

Of course, we mustn’t forget that Ganesha is a child and like all children skates along on an ocean of emotional turbulence, which provides plenty of scope for melodrama. For instance, he is endowed with an unbridled sense of curiosity. As we shall see, this occasionally leads him into trouble, at which point his other singular and endearing quality will stand him in good stead – courage.

And in the city of Mumbai Chopra and Ganesha will require courage in spades. Like most Indian metropolises Mumbai is facing a cultural onslaught from westernisation – which brings both good and bad, as I describe in my novel. Mumbai is the city of dreams. People come to Mumbai to make their fortune, to become famous on the sets of the world’s most prolific movie industry, to start micro-businesses in the city’s slums.

But where there are dreams there are also nightmares.

Chopra stands on the shadow line between old and new India. Old India is tradition, religion, the caste system, ubiquitous poverty; new India is wealth, skyscrapers and western sensibilities eroding the ancient way of life. The sights, sounds, smells, and even tastes of this modern India flesh out my canvas as Chopra and Ganesha pursue an exotic gallery of villains and evildoers.

It has been tremendous fun writing these novels, imbuing them with the warmth and colour of India from the ten years I lived there. Finding time from my job at University College London’s Department of Security and Crime Science has been tricky – but I’m an insomniac so I guess there is a silver lining to sleepless nights after all!

One questions remains to be answered . . . Do elephants really love chocolate?

Elephants are herbivores and as such their diet consists of bark, grass, shoots, leaves, and fruit. But urban elephants – often faced with lean pickings – have been known to widen their palates in the pursuit of survival. And besides, every crime-fighter needs an addiction. Holmes had his morphine, John Rebus has his whisky. Is it so hard to accept that our crime-busting little elephant needs his chocolate fix before embarking on another gruelling day on the mean streets of Mumbai?

After all, of all places in this world, India is where the impossible becomes merely improbable – such as the existence of a very gifted, crime-fighting, chocoholic baby elephant.

More information about the author and his writing can be found on his website or you can follow him on Twitter @VaseemKhanUK and find him on Facebook.


The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra

On the day he retires, Inspector Ashwin Chopra inherits two unexpected mysteries.  The first is the case of a drowned boy, whose suspicious death no one seems to want solved.  And the second is a baby elephant.  As his search for clues takes him across the teeming city of Mumbai, from its grand high rises to its sprawling slums and deep into its murky underworld, Chopra begins to suspect that there may be a great deal more to both his last case and his new ward than he thought.  And he soon learns that when the going gets tough, a determined elephant may be exactly what an honest man needs...

The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan is published on 13 August 2015 (£12.99 Mulholland Books)

In Memoriam

31 October 1926 - 27 March 2011

H(arry) R F Keating crime fiction author best known for his Inspector Ghote mysteries has died at the age of 84. Harry as he was known was Chairman of the Crime Writers Association from 1970-1971. He was also Chairman of the Society of Authors between 1983 and 1984, President of the Detection Club 1985 –2000 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was for 15 years crime fiction critic for The Times. He has written over 50 books.

Whilst he was best known for his Inspector Ghote mysteries he wrote his first novel Death and the Visiting Firemen in 1959. He also wrote a number of standalone novels as well as two other series featuring Detective Superintendent Harriet Martens and the “Detective” series, which were several novels about UK police detectives, whose human weaknesses adversely affect their work. Under the pseudonym Evelyn Hervey, Harry Keating wrote three novels in the mid eighties.

Harry wrote 26 books in the Inspector Ghote series. The first one in the series was The Perfect Murder whilst the last Inspector Ghote book is A Small Case for Inspector Ghote. Penguin are due to release in May 2011 as part of Penguin Modern Classics four Inspector Ghote Books (The Pefect Murder, Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg, Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart and Under a Monsoon Cloud) in new classic covers. These titles carry a new introduction by Alexander McCall Smith.

In 1988, The Perfect Murder was adapted for a film, directed by Zafar Hai and produced by Ismail Merchant.

Neil Simon turned his 1976 novel Murder by Death into a film featuring Truman Capote, Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, David Niven, Peter Sellers and Maggie Smith.

Harry also edited a number of anthologies including The Man Who…. in 1992 which was an anthology of crime stories commissioned by the Detection Club in celebration of Julian Symons’s 80th birthday. In celebration of his 80th birthday the Detection Club collaborated and produced an anthology entitled The Verdict of Us All.

As well as being a novelist he also wrote screenplays, was a reviewer and wrote a biography of Dame Agatha Christie entitled Agatha Christie: First Lady of Crime. He also wrote a number of well-known non-fiction novels on crime fiction. A number of them have become required reading as reference works.

He also won two CWA Gold Dagger awards one was for The Perfect Murder for best novel and the other was for a non-Ghote novel set in India, The Murder of the Maharajah. He also won a special Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. In 1995 he was awarded the George N Dove for Contributions to the study of Crime Fiction and in 1996 he was awarded the Diamond Dagger from the CWA for lifetime achievement. Malice Domestic also awarded him the lifetime achievement award.

An obituary by Mike Ripley can be found in the Guardian and the Telegraph obituary can be found here.

Mike Ripley’s feature on Harry Keating for Shots ezine can be found here.