Inspector Ghote of the Bombay CID has been sent, ordered really, to a quiet resort town in the mountains to investigate a murder. When he arrives, he find that a former British ambassador named Mehta is convinced that Ghote will wrap this all up in no time, just like in his favorite detective stories. Ghote soon tires of being compared to Sri Poirot and Sri Holmes. He does not feel himself to be a 'great detective' and he knows that real life is not like in books.

Just as indicated by the title, a body has been discovered on the billiard room of a private club. This is not the sort of place where people are used to this thing happening. Mehta has come up with a list of suspects, including a professor who is an expert on crime novels, a Maharajah and his Maharanee. Ghote feels quite out of his element here.

I really enjoyed this book. I liked Inspector Ghote and thought the other characters were well done. The narrator had a tough job getting all the accents and names right, but he did such a great job that I checked the package more than once to make sure that there really was only one reader. The book was very funny in places too. ( )