A review by writerlibrarian
The Perfect Murder by H.R.F. Keating

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.