Although I began to read this book with eagerness, it is with reluctance that I am reviewing it. I had enjoyed several of Khan’s other novels featuring Inspector Chopra and the baby elephant, mostly set in Mumbai, a lighthearted set of whodunnits with very likeable characters and amusing but still authentic touches of the Indian setting. So this latest from Khan had me hoping for more of the same, and actually, the blurb indicated this novel is set in post-partition India, right after independence, in 1949-1950 Bombay, which boded well for even more inclusions of insights into Indian society’s reaction to both nation-forming events.
Its protagonist is one Persis Wadia, India’s first female police detective, who graduated top of her class and is keen as mustard on her job, but who has been relegated with other no-hopers who have either displeased their seniors or whose careers are otherwise in twilight, to Malabar House, regarded as an unwanted unit within the force. When prominent English man, Sir James Herriot, is murdered in his mansion on night during a gala party he is hosting, and given Sir James has been very useful to the colonial administration and well regarded and the truth might well prove problematic, the case was handed over to the Malabar House unit in the hope that it will be ineptly handled and the murder hopefully never solved. Of course, they did not account for our super-keen Persis, who disobeys orders and goes her own way and simply will not stop investigating a case.
All this so far is in the best tradition of many crime-fiction novels, where the protagonist is a gifted officer or detective, but a loner, and a misfit, in a sense, who goes their own way, tolerated for their outstanding talent and given more leeway than others would be, because they are so good at crime solving. However, this latest Khan offering falls very short of the excellence of the likes of Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie, or Robert Galbraith’s Comoran Strike; Persis Wadia seems to have no idea how to conduct an investigation, no insights into reading crime scenes, no gifts as a police officer, no ability at all, but is repeatedly forced down the reader’s throat as a tenacious, integrity-stickler, who is going to solve this crime come hell or highwater. The plotting is so poor that we never see Persis cleverly reading clues which evade everyone else – instead, poor Persis is just all attitude and no ability, seemingly. She is like a bull in a chinashop, and about as effective. Her handling of witnesses – and indeed, all humans, including colleagues, relatives, friends – is heavy handed, rude, brusque, self-centred – it is hard to see how a person of this ilk could have much success in eliciting information, let alone in being endeared to a reader. She seems to have zero awareness of her positionality and her society and its norms, let alone how to navigate its communications. It is hard to have sympathy for Persis, or to root for her – I simply found this character extremely unlikely, poorly created, poorly communicated, and a mere cardboard puppet. This novel is all telling and no showing, making it a very poor read.
There are passages which are so far beyond the realms of credulity that the reader is practically insulted. For example, Persis’ mother having died when she was very young, her Aunt Nussie had stepped in and been a key part of the household to try to fill that gap. Aunt Nussie has a son, Darius, whom she clearly hopes Persis will marry. In a dinner arranged by Aunt Nussie where she brings Darius from Calcutta to dine with Persis and her father, not only does Persis bring along an unexpected guest, an Englishman she is working with and with whom there is clearly a mutual attraction growing, she is then so flagrantly rude that it is hard to believe a well-brought up Parsi woman could behave thus with relatively little provocation. Darius had been patronisingly praising her new-found celebrity in the murder case, by noting how marvellous it is women are now ‘allowed’, in the new India, to join the police force, and naturally, Persis who is prickly over gender issues, takes offense. But the way she speaks in front of her aunt, her father, and her cousin, is beyond belief. After Persis makes a long speech about not being a symbol, and Darius protests he meant no offense, she then orders her cousin to leave the house, in the middle of supper. Aunt Nussie intervenes, scarlet-faced to tell Persis she cannot speak to her cousin like that, and Persis tells her aunt,
“As far as I am concerned, you can put him back in his box and send him back to Calcutta.”
Darius rightly protests this is uncalled for, whereupon Persis says
“I’ll never marry you, not if you were the last man on earth”
p1163
How likely is this scene? How likely is it that Persis’ erudite, intelligent, wise father sitting at the table would not have intervened? How likely is it Persis would have so far forgotten her affection for her aunt, to speak in such terms at relatively little provocation? How likely is it she would rupture close family relationships by throwing her cousin out of the house where his mother had tried to be a mother to Persis for years? How likely is it that Persis so little understands how Indian familial relationships are conducted, that she can throw a tantrum of this nature (and in front of a stranger to the family, the Englishman she brings home) without caring about the consequences or even expecting there might be consequences? Persis shows no concern whatsoever for the feelings and sensitivities of others, even her nearest and dearest like her father and aunt, and comes across as a most unlikely character, not just unlikely as an Asian woman, but even just as a human being.
One hoped then if the protagonist is poorly depicted and the plotting is not even third rate, that there might be some good passages in the novel about Indian society immediately post-Independence, and post-Partition. And there are some inclusions which are interesting, a few glimpses and passing references as the reader strains to get even a key hole peep into India of the 1950s and public sentiment at that time, but all too few, alas. There are some nice mentions of how India had changed, from idealistic, Gandhi-inspired unity, to a divisiveness:
“The spirit of the national unity had fractured and the old divisions had arisen anew. Caste prejudice, religious strife, economic inequality. The rick fought tough-and-nail to hold on to what they had; the poor lased out in mindless fury, victims of their own ignorance”
p63
Those passages about the national politics were far more interesting than Persis’ fumbling attempts to solve a poorly conceived whodunnit. Khan does provide a little about Indian-British relationships and how there are so many different takes on it, from those who supported imperial rule, to those who vehemently opposed it. He does demonstrate that there is a vast variety of reactions across different segments of society, and even if rather heavy-handedly and reductionistically, does indicate there are so many factions across race, caste, and religious lines. The novel is not totally unreadable, but it gave me little pleasure, and I will be hesitant to pick up the next release from Khan.
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