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fictionfan's review
2.0
Not quite perfect...
This is a light-hearted crime mystery set in Bombay. The hero, Inspector Ghote, is an attractive character, warm-hearted and honourable, trying to do the right thing by his job and his family in a system filled with corruption and incompetence. Unfortunately, the rest of the characters too often seemed like caricatures, and unlikeable ones at that. Everyone is portrayed as either foolish, incompetent, lying or corrupt – and that’s just the police! And then poor Ghote has to go home to his deeply awful wife. He seems to love her – can’t think why!
The plot was OK but moved along at a snail’s pace and with constant repetitions. I think the lengthy descriptive passages were spoiled for me by the fact that so much is made in the blurb and introduction of the fact that the author had never actually been in Bombay – so how authentic is the picture of the city?
All-in-all, a reasonably enjoyable, undemanding read but I won’t be putting the second volume on my wish list.
NB This book was provided for review by Amazon Vine UK.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
This is a light-hearted crime mystery set in Bombay. The hero, Inspector Ghote, is an attractive character, warm-hearted and honourable, trying to do the right thing by his job and his family in a system filled with corruption and incompetence. Unfortunately, the rest of the characters too often seemed like caricatures, and unlikeable ones at that. Everyone is portrayed as either foolish, incompetent, lying or corrupt – and that’s just the police! And then poor Ghote has to go home to his deeply awful wife. He seems to love her – can’t think why!
The plot was OK but moved along at a snail’s pace and with constant repetitions. I think the lengthy descriptive passages were spoiled for me by the fact that so much is made in the blurb and introduction of the fact that the author had never actually been in Bombay – so how authentic is the picture of the city?
All-in-all, a reasonably enjoyable, undemanding read but I won’t be putting the second volume on my wish list.
NB This book was provided for review by Amazon Vine UK.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
bev_reads_mysteries's review against another edition
Spoiler Alert! There is NO murder in The Perfect Murder. Sorry about that. But for all of you who might pick this up thinking that this is one of those impossible crimes or that your murder mystery actually has a murder in it, I thought you ought to know. I also think you ought to know that this is (in my opinion) far from the perfect anything--story, crime novel, etc. This is my second outing with Keating writing under his own name* and I have to say that I am beginning to think that he just isn't for me.
But...back to the story. Why, you might ask, is it called "The Perfect Murder" if there's no murder and what we do have going on isn't perfect? Glad you asked. It seems that the secretary of Lala Varde, a prosperous businessman, has been bashed over the head with a candlestick. Lala Varde reported it to the police as a murder--because by his logic someone was trying to murder his secretary, so by golly it's murder. Even if it didn't succeed. The name caught on with the newspapers and such and nobody seems to care that the man really didn't die. The ever-conscientious Inspector Ghote is assigned to the case and is immediately faced with lies, disdain, and corruption.
So...I'll just fess up now and tell you that I did not read every word of this. Not even as much as every other word. Only enough that I decided that I could legitimately count it for a few challenges and I'm shoving this thing off my Mount TBR and sending it back to the library's used book shop where it came from. I skimmed to the end just so I could know what really happened. Kate over at crossexamingingcrime says that Keating is "good at establishing an interesting setting in a culture which readers can identify with but also find difference in." I'm afraid I didn't find this to be the case. I never did settle into the setting that Keating gave us and I certainly didn't warm to the methods of Ghote and the culture surrounding him as represented. And don't even get me started on Lala Varde and his never-ending need to make silly rhymes about everything when talking. No rating because I didn't really read closely enough to hand one out. Others have handed out four and five stars...so your mileage may vary.
*I have also read a couple of his historical mysteries written under the name Evelyn Hervey. I enjoyed those more--handing out three stars.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
But...back to the story. Why, you might ask, is it called "The Perfect Murder" if there's no murder and what we do have going on isn't perfect? Glad you asked. It seems that the secretary of Lala Varde, a prosperous businessman, has been bashed over the head with a candlestick. Lala Varde reported it to the police as a murder--because by his logic someone was trying to murder his secretary, so by golly it's murder. Even if it didn't succeed. The name caught on with the newspapers and such and nobody seems to care that the man really didn't die. The ever-conscientious Inspector Ghote is assigned to the case and is immediately faced with lies, disdain, and corruption.
So...I'll just fess up now and tell you that I did not read every word of this. Not even as much as every other word. Only enough that I decided that I could legitimately count it for a few challenges and I'm shoving this thing off my Mount TBR and sending it back to the library's used book shop where it came from. I skimmed to the end just so I could know what really happened. Kate over at crossexamingingcrime says that Keating is "good at establishing an interesting setting in a culture which readers can identify with but also find difference in." I'm afraid I didn't find this to be the case. I never did settle into the setting that Keating gave us and I certainly didn't warm to the methods of Ghote and the culture surrounding him as represented. And don't even get me started on Lala Varde and his never-ending need to make silly rhymes about everything when talking. No rating because I didn't really read closely enough to hand one out. Others have handed out four and five stars...so your mileage may vary.
*I have also read a couple of his historical mysteries written under the name Evelyn Hervey. I enjoyed those more--handing out three stars.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
writerlibrarian's review
3.0
This I loved. It's comedy and social critic masquerading as a mystery novel. Written in the mid 60's, this is the first Inspector Ghote novel. Set in Bombay some 15 years after India became independent, we follow inspector Ghote, a young husband and father, trying to be a good policeman, a good inspector, following the rules, pursing justice and all that but coming up against the powers of tradition, religion, racism, money, corruption. He's like a Charlie Brown type of character that we kinda identify with and hang on to while the author paints us this portrait of a society quite different from ours but much like ours in its failing, it's human flaws. It's funny, it's satirical, it's critical and it has somewhat of a mystery "The Perfect Murder" which is the name of the victim : Mr. Perfect. I'll definitely go hunt the next book of this series.
ajlewis2's review
3.0
A witty sort of detective story where everything goes wrong. Much relates to the caste system in India.
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