Vaseem KhanRecensioni

Inspector Chopra (Retd) is invited, with his baby elephant Ganesha, to travel on a restored train between India and Pakistan, full of diplomats and other luminaries in an effort to broker warmer relations between the neighboring countries, but when the leader of the Indian contingent is murdered, suspicions are high amongst the adversaries and it is up to Chopra to determine the culprit before an international incident is sparked…. This novella, published between the fourth and fifth novels in the Baby Ganesh Agency series, is a showcase for Chopra’s powers of observation, along with Ganesha’s extraordinary qualities including a very precise sense of smell. It isn’t necessary to have read the novels in the series; in fact, this short book might be a great entry into the series as a whole. And, of course, as a novella it is primarily a sidebar to the longer books, but it’s a delight just the same and well worth reading on its own merits; recommended.½

When an important Parsee is killed on the grounds of the Towers of Silence, where corpses of dead Parsees are left to be devoured by vultures, the police service is eager to declare that a random stranger did the deed and to close the case quickly. The man’s daughter, however, has other ideas and she hires Inspector Chopra (Retd) to investigate further. Soon, Chopra finds himself entangled in the strange world of Parsee society in Mumbai, a religious sect inexplicable to many but one which values social contribution to a large degree, a value the dead man may or may not have honored during his lifetime….This is the fifth Baby Ganesh Agency novel, and like its predecessors it is both cozy, funny and, occasionally, brutally violent; in this case, descriptions of the death-related rituals of a particular religion might be stomach-churning to the unwary reader. Nevertheless, Chopra is a wonderful character and although baby elephant Ganesha doesn’t have as much presence in this book as in some of the previous ones, he is always a delight when he does appear; recommended!½

Well. Vaseem Khan writes a good pacey yarn, with engaging characters: I'm quite happy for the baddies to be very very bad, because the goodies are not always very very good. Our heroine, Persis, the only female Police Inspector in 1950s India is flawed indeed - headstrong and gauche in equal measure, but we root for her anyway. I very much enjoy this glimpse of life in post-Colonial India, where the undeniable failings of the British are at risk of being replicated by the new Indian elite. This time, Persis has been charged with re-opening the case of an Englishman going to the gallows for the murder of an Indian lawyer and activist. And she has to work quickly and with little backing and support: this man will die soon, and it would be no good discovering that he's innocent once he's dead. Excitement mounts. But. And for me it's a big but. Crisis follows crisis. Persis finds herself in impossible situations time after time. And time after time, improbably provident rescue arrives just at the very last moment. It all gets just a bit too frenetic. Nevertheless, this is a dashing story, a good involving read. Just ... maybe put the brakes on a little bit, Vaseem Khan? Oh, and - let's avoid a spoiler alert. Don't let that letter which Persis writes at the very end of the book get delivered. Please.

I think I've found another detective series I can get behind. This series is set in turn-of-the-decade 40s and 50s Bombay, a period when Partition is still leaving a bitter taste, when the British who remain are not necessarily to be trusted. We meet Persis Wadia, India's first female detective. She's prickly, and quick to take offence, but she's had to fight hard to get where she is now, and even harder to retain her place on the ladder. She's based at Malabar House, where all the Police misfits and embarrassments end up. When prominent English diplomat, James Herriot is murdered, the case lands up on her desk . Why? Following clues and intuition, and with the cooperation of English criminalist Archie Blackfinch, she finds the murderer. He even confesses. But did he actually commit the crime? Sometimes convoluted, this is an engaging story that on its way teaches something of the fallout from a chaotic act of Partition. A largely satisfying read.

An entertaining-with-a touch-of-dark detective story, featuring Inspector Chopra, ex-Mumbai police, now a private investigator, and his perhaps not entirely convincing side-kick, a young elephant. A prominent Parsee industrialist has been murdered, and long ago the case was dismissed by the police as a random killing. His daughter, not satisfied with this conclusion, calls in Chopra, who finds himself investigating a case plagued by corruption in influential quarters, the love of money, and guilty secrets. An atmospheric and gripping read.

The police are anxious to close a case as the suicide of an American art collector at the most opulent hotel in Mumbai, but the Inspector in charge has his doubts, so he calls in his old colleague, Inspector Chopra (Retd), to investigate. Soon enough, Chopra is embroiled in the highly contentious art collecting world, including a young beautiful promoter who makes him quite uncomfortable, a prickly art critic, an extremely well-known artist and more - and all of them are hiding secrets that may explain what happened. In the meantime, Chopra’s wife Poppy is unhappy that he seems to be ignoring their upcoming 25th wedding anniversary, so she decides to go to him at his worksite at the hotel, where she becomes embroiled in another prickly case, that of the disappearance of a reluctant princess bride….I read a review of an earlier book in this series wherein the reviewer coined (I think) the term “cozy noir” to describe the way that this series is generally quite gentle and funny, but with scenes of extreme violence interspersed. I thought it a great term, but one that does not really apply to this particular entry - yes, there is a scene of great violence, but it is in the past and therefore to my mind not quite noirish. That said, we also have a monkey movie star who has a hatred of elephants, young Irfan getting up to mischief with baby elephant Ganesha, and a great deal of royalty in disarray; recommended!½

Inspector Chopra (ret’d) is a bit overwhelmed when a Bollywood legend asks him to find her son, an up-and-coming Bollywood actor who has disappeared in the middle of filming the most expensive Bollywood film ever. It soon becomes clear that he has been kidnapped, but by whom - the film producer’s gangster backers, the mysterious Muslim man who might hold a grudge against the legendary star, other actors who are jealous? The list is endless. Meanwhile, Subinspector Rangwalla (ret’d) is given the task of finding out why a recluse is asking Mumbai’s eunuch community to stay at his estate, a job that requires undercover work that makes Rangwalla very uncomfortable….This third book in the Baby Ganesh Detective Agency series is a delight, although there are some quite shocking scenes in the midst of its general mildness (especially at a notorious jail). The reader learns a lot about the history of Bollywood, as well as the curious social position of eunuchs who are somewhat tolerated and somewhat feared by the general public; not to mention some sub-plots involving Irfan’s education and, of course, Ganesha the baby elephant being adorable and mischievous; recommended.½

When the English crown featuring the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond is stolen, Inspector Chopra is convinced that his nemesis Assistant Commissioner Rao is wrong to have arrested former police officer Garewal for the crime, despite the crown (absent the diamond) being found in Garewal’s house, and he is determined to catch the real culprit. Meanwhile, Chopra’s associate Rangwalla is given the task of identifying the students at Poppy’s school who have stolen a prized sculpture and test papers, a task made more difficult by the arrogance of the young students. And some other kids are not treating the baby elephant Ganesha very well at all…. This is the second in the Baby Ganesh Detective Agency series and like its predecessor, it is funny and generally gentle, although there are some graphically violent scenes. The characters are all charming and interesting, and Ganesha is a treat. This is a series that should be read in order, I think, but however one meets these characters, the reader will be happy to have done so; recommended.½

Following a heart attack, Inspector Ashwin Chopra is taking an early retirement from the Mumbai Police, although he is quite ambivalent about the matter. His last day includes recording the death of a young man, which might be an accidental drowning or might be murder, and the surprise gift from his Uncle Bansi of a baby elephant. Chopra has no idea what to do with the elephant, nor does he know how to deal with his retirement, until his replacement’s lack of interest in investigating the young man’s death leads to Chopra taking charge once more, this time on his own…. This is the first in the Baby Ganesh series, introducing us to the main characters and describing how the detective agency came into existence. As with other books by Mr. Khan that I have enjoyed, this novel contains a lot of interesting information about life in Mumbai, with well-drawn and thoughtful characters and an intriguing story line. I have to admit to being extremely anxious about the baby elephant, at least for the first half of the book or so, but aside from that apprehension (which is resolved by the end), I very much enjoyed this story and look forward to reading more about Chopra, Poppy and, of course, especially Ganesha; recommended!½

Persis Wadia, first female police inspector in India, is asked by Additional Deputy Commissioner Amit Shukla to look into the circumstances surrounding the murder of an Indian lawyer, for which a rich white man, James Whitby, has been tried and convicted. Whitby is due to be executed for the crime, although he insists that he is innocent, but Shukla thinks that a discreet re-examination of the case might be helpful. Persis’s investigation takes her to Calcutta and another murder some years past, and the more she discovers there, the less she understands the case…. This is the fourth and latest installment in the Malabar House series, and like its predecessors, it includes a lot of Indian history, primarily of the period before, during and just after Partition. Persis seems to have matured a bit since the last book, but her impulsiveness still results in grave danger for herself and others. I missed some of the regular characters such as her father (who is away on his honeymoon) and Archie (who only shows up late in the story), but it was nice to see her coming to a better understanding of and with her cousin Darius. The book ends on a cliffhanger - will she or won’t she? - which I hope means that Book 5 will be coming along soon as this reader really wants to know the answer to that question! Recommended - but start at the beginning of the series, please!½

An enjoyable if somewhat ridiculous story of a retired detective and his baby elephant sidekick fighting crime. It should be completely implausible, but the good nature that permeates the story somehow makes up for the story issues. Will try more

When hikers in the lower Himalayas come across the body of a man, it falls to female detective Persis Wadia, the only woman officer in the Bombay police force, to try to identify the body and, if possible, find the cause of death. She is soon sidetracked by more recent deaths, however, including the murder of a couple and then the killing of a priest. The first case is assigned to her nemesis, Inspector Oberoi, who is quick to arrest a servant for the crime, but Persis has the feeling that all three of the cases are connected and that the servant couldn’t possibly be the culprit. Now all she has to do is set about proving it…. This is the third (of four, so far) book in the Malabar House series, set in 1950 Bombay and featuring the very prickly Persis and her criminologist friend Archie Blackfinch, as well as a supporting cast of recurring characters. As with the previous two books, “Lost Man” provides the reader with a lot of 20th Century Indian history in a way that feels organic to the story-telling, while also entertaining with a fairly clued and intricate plot. I am becoming a little weary of Persis’s jarring behavior, though; for example, when she finds out that her father is dating a woman, her reaction is that of a very annoying adolescent rather than a grown woman, and her automatic response to any criticism is to lash out rather than to think first, a behavior that makes sense given the disapproval surrounding her choices of career and personal life but which still becomes tiresome after a while. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series, and hope that there will be more to come; recommended.½

A highly-respected English scholar is in Bombay, studying a 13th century manuscript of Dante’s Divine Comedy with a view to a new translation. When the book goes missing, and the scholar too, Inspector Persis Wadia is assigned to investigate. Meanwhile, she is also asked to supervise Sub-Inspector George Fernandes as he investigates the death of a young English woman, something she is loath to do because of his previous behavior towards her. As the mystery surrounding each of these investigations deepens, she realizes that the answers lie in the recent past, and the horrors of the Second World War…. This is the second book in the Malabar House series, and like its predecessor is set in Bombay circa 1950, where Persis is the first (and so far, only) female police inspector in the country. She continues to be an intriguing character, both very smart, very diligent and very prickly indeed, as she must be in the face of so much disapproval for her career. The secondary characters are also well-drawn and complex, especially Archie Blackfinch, the British crime scene investigator with whom Persis works closely, and Sub-Inspector Fernandes, who is much more than he seems. I caught a couple of anachronisms here (even though the term “Ms.” is said to have originated in the 1950s, I doubt it was known and used in 1950 in India, and the term “Bollywood” dates from the 1970s), but overall this series continues to delight, and I am looking forward to Persis’s next adventure; recommended!

Persis Wadia, the first and so far only female police inspector in India, is summoned to the Bombay home of a wealthy Englishman on New Year’s Eve 1949; the Englishman has been killed and, as Persis is the duty officer that holiday night she gets the call. She is less than pleased when she finds that the dead man’s assistant has summoned someone else as well, an English “criminalist” named Archie Blackfinch who has been advising the new crime branch of the government, but it soon becomes apparent that she will have to work with the man if she wants to get anything done at all. She is eager to prove that women can be successful police officers, but when her own superior officers undermine her efforts to find the truth and instead settle for a convenient fiction, Persis realizes that she will have to prove herself to herself, first of all…. I ran across a story by Mr. Khan featuring Persis in an anthology I read recently (also co-edited by Mr. Khan) and I was intrigued enough to search out the first couple of novels in this series. I’m glad I did: Persis is a delight, being highly intelligent, very very prickly and absolutely tenacious when she is after the truth, and Archie is a quite lovely bumbling-but-not-really sidekick. We are also treated to a few lectures on Indian history, in particular Partition and its aftermaths, but those history lessons are incorporated into the story in such a way that the reader doesn’t experience them as information dumps; rather, they serve to orient Persis, Archie and others in the story in the larger context of the world around them. I’m happy to know that there are, as of now, three other books in this series and I’m already looking forward to reading them; recommended!

“The Perfect Crime” is an all-original anthology of 22 crime stories “from diverse cultures around the world,” the idea being that crime fiction has largely been written by white authors featuring white characters, and this volume aims to challenge that hegemony. Fair enough, but it turns out that the “diverse cultures around the world” is almost entirely limited to the US and UK - by my count, 15 of the 22 stories here take place in those two countries, albeit with non-white characters and/or authors involved. That said, this anthology like many others is a mixed bag; some stories work well and others less well. As always with story collections, one reader’s favorites will not be the same as another’s. My particular favorites include Editor Vaseem Khan’s own entry, “Death in Darjeeling”; a lovely sort-of Bluebeard retelling, “The Beautiful Game” by Sanjida Kay; the very clever “The Yellow Line” by Ausma Zehanat Khan set in Toronto and confronting racist behavior in the subway and other public places; First Nations author Thomas King’s very funny “Chinook”; and Walter Mosley’s neo-science fiction story “Bring Me Your Pain.” I think the premise of the anthology is an excellent one, even if the execution was not all that it could be, and I plan to search out some of the other works of some of these authors, so I thank the editors for introducing me to these new voices; moderately recommended.½

Inspector Persis Wadia wants nothing to do with taking a look into the case of convicted killer James Whitby. India was controlled by British "justice" for hundreds of years. Surely, turnabout is fair play? But higher-ups in the Bombay Police and the government realize that, if no one makes sure that Whitby is really guilty, then they are no better than the whites who ruled them for so long. Besides, if anything goes pear-shaped, who better to put in charge of the investigation than the only woman on the police force, the woman everyone wishes would just disappear? Persis is the perfect scapegoat.

Author Vaseem Khan continues his enthralling Malabar House historical series with this fourth book, Death of a Lesser God. He never fails to enlighten me about the history of the area, be it India's fight for independence, the gut-wrenching Partition riots, or the horrific Bengali Famine of 1943. This fourth book centers on a sensitive subject: ensuring that the former white oppressors receive justice even though they did not dispense it themselves when they were in power. And... how can you scream at someone to GO HOME when they were born in India? "How can I go back to a place I've never been?" says more than one white character.

Inspector Persis Wadia is led by an overwhelming ambition to succeed in a career where she's not wanted. She is so convinced of her mission that she blindly puts others in danger. Fortunately, Persis realizes these deadly traits and knows she has to fight them. Watching her character struggle and develop is one of the strengths of this series. She must also deal with a personal learning curve when she's put in charge of mentoring Seema, a young woman who wants more for herself than a life in abject poverty. Fortunately, the love triangle Khan has created isn't taking center stage in the story, since I've never cared for those. However, the triangle does highlight a cultural difficulty. Life would be much easier if Persis accepted her Aunty Nussie's choice of Darius. Her strong attraction to white Archie Blackfinch could be much more dangerous.

As compelling as the story is, I did have a couple of problems with it. There was a bit of deus ex machina at the end with various elements popping up just in time to save the day. Although they had been mentioned tangentially beforehand, their timing was so impeccable that I couldn't resist a tiny eye roll. In addition, similes run amok through most of the book. Now I love a good simile, but when I start counting them, it's not a favorable sign. But those two small complaints aside, Death of a Lesser God is a good addition to Persis Wadia's story. I'm looking forward to what she does next.

This is the fourth in the Malabar House series with Inspector Persis Wadia, the first female police officer in India. Of course, she is hidden away in the backwaters of police stations, Malabar House, but has a knack of being asked to investigate high profile cases, possibly to try and bring her down but also because she is good, if a little naive, at her job.

Set in the 1950s, post partition, the lesser god is James Whitby, the son of a ruthless businessman, who is accused of murdering a lawyer. He is found guilty and due to hang but the complication is that he is a White English man, and the lawyer is Indian. So, one of the big questions in the book is whether an English man can receive justice in post-colonial India and it is a close call.

The search for the truth takes Persis and her apprentice, Seema, from Bombay to Calcutta on the trail of the motivations for the killing. Complicating matters is what appears to be a star of David sent to the lawyer not long before he was killed. This means moving amongst the many religious groups in India, Jews being one of them. However, what symbols might mean to westerners is not necessarily what they mean to Indians and this drives one of the wrong turns that Persis takes on her search.

In India, symbols endured. From the calcified remains of Christian saints, to the soaring architecture of Muslim conquerors, to innumerable Hindu pilgrimage sites dotted around the place, to the rumours that Jesus had once walked the mountains of Kashmir - presumably in something more than a sackcloth robe - religion had left behind stories that twisted and flapped through the populace, attaching themselves to susceptible minds.
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Interspersed throughout the story are first person accounts of James Whitby's life, I think to show us how his upbringing and life as the son of a man who believes that Indians are subordinate to an Englishman and that they are lazy and need beating in order to get anything done, have shaped him. Slowly, they detail his change in thinking from going along with his father's beliefs to determining his own.

My identity is not up for debate. I am a white man and I am an Indian. A strange bird, but this is my forest and if I am to fly, then it shall be here.
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At a couple of crucial moments Persis and Seema are saved by rather unbelievable events - a tiger kills one person and a crocodile eats another. Whether these are meant to be representatives of the Gods, invoked by the Gods or just rather convenient ways of allowing Persis to investigate another day, I don't know. Whichever way, they didn't quite work.

As the epigraph says, when asked whether you are a man or a demon, the answer is that you are a human being. Good and evil reside in all of us, it's just which one wins the day.

4.5⭐️

The Perfect Crime is a unique selection of short stories (some longer than the others), featuring authors from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, revolving around themes of murder and mayhem, clandestine affairs, betrayals, hate crimes, corruption, blackmail and revenge.

From America to New Zealand and the UK to India, the settings for the stories are as varied as the stories themselves. We have a bouncer who discovers the identity of the person who murdered his girlfriend, the victim of hate crimes who decides to take matters into her own hands, a court reporter with a penchant for collecting buttons, a professional photographer who is roped in to take pictures of her boyfriend's child with his wife, an army veteran turned PI who discovers a human trafficking ring while driving through a “sundown town”, the mysterious death of a tutor of a prestigious school, wedding photographers who capture more than wedding photos on an assignment, a sheep farmer whose sheep are disappearing mysteriously, a young romance turned sour, a young woman dazzled by the attention of a celebrity sportsman only to find herself stranded in his home in a remote location, former bank robbers who have to hash out a mystery from their past, a prank by the graduating class of a military academy that triggers one of the administrator’s childhood phobias and trauma attached to the same and much more.

Edited by Maxim Jakubowski and Vaseem Khan this anthology features works by S.A. Cosby, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, J.P. Pomare Sulari Gentill, Nelson George, Rachel Howzell Hall, John Vercher, Sanjida Kay, Amer Anwar, Henry Chang, Nadine Matheson, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Abir Mukherjee, Sheena Kamal, Vaseem Khan, Mike Phillips, Ausma Zehanat Khan, Felicia Yap, Thomas King, Imran Mahmood, Walter Mosley and David Heska Wanbli Weiden.

Very rarely have I come across an anthology as impressive as this. I loved most of the stories and liked the rest. The narratives are crisp, well-paced and versatile in plot and characterization. While a few of them feature procedural crime-solving, others focus on the PoVs of the perpetrators or victims-turned-avengers. Not all these stories end on a tidy note , with many of them ambiguous leaving the reader guessing. My personal favorites were Ausma Zehanat Khan’s The Yellow Line, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Land of Milk and Honey, Vaseem Khan’s Death in Darjeeling, J.P.Pomare’s For Marg, Amer Anwar’s Quiet Night In and Oyinkan Braithwaite’s Jumping Ship.

The Perfect Crime is an exquisitely curated selection of stories that kept me engaged till the very end. I thoroughly enjoyed it and loved discovering many new authors whose works I hope to explore further. If you are a fan of this genre , you wouldn't want to miss this one!

Un début de retraite décidément très mouvementé.

This is intriguing, but I can't help that it is trying to do a bit too much.
Set in early 1950 in post partition India, the main character is Persis, India's first female detective. Her father is a wheelchair bound book shop owner, her mother died at a protest. She has anger issues and is struggling to deal with the inherent misogyny of her colleagues and her culture. At times she feels rather modern, maybe too modern. Into the investigation we throw an English forensic consultant with a dose of OCD (at the very least), I sense the beginnings of a potential difficult romance.
All of which is already overloading a book and we're yet to discuss the murder. Sir James Herriot is a diplomat (not a vet) who is found dead with his trousers down at a New Year's party at his house. He was involved in an investigation into crimes committed at partition, is this the cause of his murder? There are motives all over the place, and quite a lot of history, the massacre at Amritsar gets a name check amongst other battles and wars.
It's not that this was bad, it just felt like it had to many layers. It made it overly complicated. This might have been a better read had there been less going on. It is the start of a series.

Although I have read #1 in another series by this author, I haven't obeyed my own "rule" and read #1 in this series (Malabar House). That means that there are relationships between characters that were revealed and developed in the earlier two novels which I have come to cold. Nevertheless the author did a fairly good job of filling in the gaps for me.

The plot is a fairly complex one. A dessicated body is found in a cave in the Himalayan hills by a climber. Shortly after that three people are murdered in Bombay and Inspector Persis Wadia discovers a connection between them and the Ice Man.

India is newly independent and relations between India and their former masters have to be handled carefully. Research into the past is fraught with problems and these are exacerbated by the personality of Persis, particularly because she is female in what is essentially a male world.

Bright start to a new historical mystery series set in India by Vaseem Khan. Persis Wadia, the first female inspector in post-independence India, has been sidelined into a team of misfit police upon graduating from the police academy. Now unexpectedly brought into leading the investigation of a well-connected British aristocrat's murder, she brings her dogged intelligence, moralistic and also naive persona to the investigation. An excellent and involved police procedural carries the narrative against the backdrop of intriguing and sometimes harrowing stories of the impact of partition on post-colonial India. Lots of well-drawn investigative threads that come together in a satisfying conclusion. Since Persis was not meant to succeed in this investigation as we learn, it is not surprising that "justice" as we might think of it in Western terms is not exactly served. But Persis survives her bosses' wrath to continue onward.

Characters beautifully drawn in this book -- Persis, her father Sam, and of course her sometime partner in this investigation, forensic investigator Archie Blackfinch. I applaud Vaseem Kham's decision to imperil Archie twice in the book, including at the end, only to be saved by Persis! Delightful switch in the overused "damsel in distress" trope.

I have already bought the next book in the series The Dying Day and it will be ready on my TBR list when I can get to it! Good job Vaseem!

Really enjoyed this one! Seems like Mr. Khan has gotten into a groove with this second book. I think it is even better than the first book where you could sense a little searching in terms of direction for the characters and series. Ganesha is so adorable and smart!

I believe this is the best in the series so far! The characters have really come into their own and the plot was very intricate without being cumbersome. Looking forward to the next installment!

Really enjoyed this book. It's great to read a book set in another country and this mystery was a fun read. The baby elephant was icing on the cake! Looking forward to reading the next one. As a fan of McCall Smith, I wouldn't say this has his philosophical insights, but I liked the view of another country and culture.