Review: The Perfect Murder (Inspector Ghote #1) By H.R.F. Keating
It is just Inspector Ghote’s luck to be landed with the case of the Perfect Murder at the start of his career with the Bombay Police. For this most baffling of crimes there is the cunning and important tycoon Lala Varde to contend with. And if this were not enough, Ghote finds himself having to investigate the mysertious theft of one rupee from the desk of yet another Very Important Person—the Minister of Police Affairs and the Arts. “If people would only behave in a simple, reasonable, logical way, ” sighs the inspector as he struggles through the quagmires of incompetence and corruption to solve these curious crimes.
Review:
Dear Readers,
I have to note right off the bat that I had never heard of this writer prior to reading this book for my bookclub. I understand now that his works belongs to the classics of the mystery genre, but this book mostly did not work for me.
Of course it was clear to me that he knew how to write a book. I did not enjoy the execution of the story at all though. The book bored me out of my mind.
I do try not to form any expectations prior to reading a completely new to me story. I however think that expectations based on the blurb are fair and I thought that the blurb promised me a detective story, a murder investigation – a police procedural if you may.
There is a murder investigation (sort of), but it was just more than a little absurd to me and Inspector Ghote just did not seem like he was a very competent investigator. I think I understand what author was trying to show – an honest person who does not occupy a high position in society but wants to do his job well and by the book (I stopped counting how many times the inspector referred to the book that teaches how to do a correct investigation), but gets constantly interrupted by his inept superiors and just overall corrupted people who are higher than him on the society ladder. And that person still stubbornly pushes through.
I got it but I did not care much about Inspector Ghose, so I could not sympathize with him. I thought all the characters but him were nothing more than cardboard cutouts and I wish he was more relatable too.
I do not know how well Keating portrayed the India of the 1950s so I cannot comment on that either.
I also wanted to note that the book does not seem to be available on Kindle. The Amazon Kindle “Perfect murder” title is authored by a completely different author. I wanted to warn because at least one GR review of this book was discussing a very different title and I get why because their Kindle link sends you there. The link below will take you to the paperback edition of the correct book but remember, don’t click on the Kindle button. The BN link will take you to the audiobook.
Grade: C-
