Murder in Mumbai

by Krishnadev Calamur

This is a straightforward, old fashioned, who done it murder mystery which I thoroughly enjoyed! Calamur has written a good story set in modern day India. He makes you feel that you are really there with his descriptions of the sights, sounds and smell of the town.

The story opens when two robbers literally fall over a dead female body in the apartment that they are going to rob and decide that their best of course of action is to dispose of the body because, after all who would believe that they didn’t kill her. Of course, to complicate matters, the body is that of a western female who happens to be the CEO of an important company. So they take matters into hand and dispose of the body where they think that surely it will never be found. The gods, and India’s weather, are against them. So the story begins. An honest cop, a disgraced journalist, a jaded environmentalist, and some guilt ridden crooks make for a wonderful story line.

Calamur has developed his characters beautifully. Yes, there is corruption in the Indian police force, but that is not so unusual in India is it ?  Gaikwad, the police investigator is doing the best that he can with a system that he cannot change and in the process garners respect from his peers and with that comes an ability to solve a crime. Gaikwad does it the old fashioned way, through dogged, hard police work. It’s interesting that the procedure to solve crime does not change from country to country.

Jay Ganesh the disgraced journalist is working at the equivalent of the The Enquirer because he exposed corruption and would not back down. He is determined to get back in the game of real news reporting and with help to and from Gaikwad manages to do that. How he does it makes for interesting reading and kept me guessing.

Gaja Kohli is an environmentalist who has become jaded. While his public persona still has the ring of truth and authenticity, the private person is quite a different story.  It is easy to try and judge why he is this way, but God knows, the same things happen to many of us just not on as a grand a scale.

Liz Barton, the one who was murdered, is not written as a sympathetic character. You never feel sorry for her, her husband, or the company that she works, or worked for, anywhere in the story. That I feel is the way it should be because the story is not about her. It is about a new India and the way that it is coming to grips with rapid growth, urbanization and globalization.

Americans are being introduced to the new India via the media specifically through movies such as Slumdog Millionaire and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel just to name two. This book immerses you in the new India and I think that it is going to be a great success. It is well written, so much so that you want to read more stories with  Gaikwad and Ganesh, hopefully Calamur will write a sequel !