Page Updated: 01/04/2009

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H.R.F. Keating - Page 2

A Detective in Love Breaking and Entering The Hard Detective Bribery, Corruption Also Jack the Lady Killer

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Paperback - Pan (2002)

First British Edition Macmillan (2001)

A Detective in Love
It was six-thirty in the morning when Detective Superintendent Harriet Martens took a phone call that would change her life...
For the call is to inform her that Britain’s number one tennis star and media darling, the wonderfully pretty Bubbles Xingara, has been murdered in the grounds of her big country house. Harriet is now in charge of a case that will have the world’s media - already massing for the start of Wimbledon – out in force.
But it is not the investigation that is about to explode Harriet’s life. Or the string of murder suspects - including Bubbles’ stepfather and coach Peter Renshaw, her assistant Fiona Diplock, or even the French gangster, Pierre le Fou, whom she had publicly humiliated.
No, it is the burly, young figure of Detective Inspector Anselm Brent.
For Harriet Martens – wire and mother, nicknamed the Hard Detective by the press and her colleagues – has fallen madly and passionately in love with a fellow officer…
Critical Acclaim for H.R.F. Keating
'Few, if any, contemporary writers are as entertaining as the remarkable H.R.F Keating.' Len Deighton
'Keating reveals, not for the first time, his criminal versatility in The Rich Detective… a delight' Marcel Berlins, The Times
'Classic crime from a master of the genre' Nottingham Evening Post
'Masterly as ever' Times Literary Supplement

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First British Edition Macmillan (2000)

Paperback - Pan (2001)

Breaking and Entering
There, in the heart of his place of safety, in a room he was calling as his den, a room where no one was admitted without first knocking, not even his wife, Ajmani sahib was killed.'
All Bombay is buzzing with news of the murder of Anil Ajmani. It is certainly a baffling case, for the millionaire was found stabbed to death in his heavily guarded and tightly secure mansion. Every inspector in the Crime Branch hopes to be the one to nail the killer. And that includes Inspector Ganesh Ghote. Unfortunately, he is the only officer not assigned to the case.
Instead he has been given the less glorious task of tracking down the cat burglar, nicknamed Yeshwant, who has been scaling apartment blocks in the dead of night to steal valuable pieces of jewellery.
Aided - or perhaps hampered - by his old friend Axel Svensson, seeking Indian warmth from his troubles in winter-cold Sweden, Ghote fights to uncover Yeshwant's true identity.
And in doing so unexpectedly finds that he may be the one to solve the murder of Anil Ajmani after all …
'A delight' Observer
'As fresh and as entertaining as ever, an amazing 35 years since his first appearance' Daily Telegraph
'Inspector Ghote is one of the great characters of the contemporary mystery novel.' New York Times
More Praise for H.R.F.Keating and the Inspector Ghote Series
'H.R,E Keating has created in Ganesh Ghote an enchanting and engaging inspector.' P.D. James
'Mr Keating has a long-established winner in his sympathetic and lively hero.' The Times
'H.R.F Keating breathes new life into the classic detective story.' Reginald Hill

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Paperback - Pan (2000)

First British Edition Macmillan (2000)

The Hard Detective
'I'm hard, yes. Because I've got to be. I should be. But I'm hard in a good cause.'
Yet still those words prickled in her mind.
Detective Chief Inspector Harriet Martens has earned the nickname the 'hard detective' - but she's had to be unyielding to make it in a man's world. And, after all, it was this toughness that inspired her successful Stop the Rot campaign, that has so provoked local criminals.
But now two of her officers have died within hours of each other. Harriet comes to believe both have been murdered - and a disturbing idea follows. For the circumstances of each death echo words from the Book of Exodus: Life for Life, Eye for Eye…
Has a killer chosen this gruesome ritual to tell Harriet she has been pushing too hard?
And if so, can she prevent the six deaths that will surely complete the quotation? Beginning with Tooth for Tooth…
'Another first-class mystery from one of the doyens of British crime writing' Sunday Times
'One of his best… It really is a top-notch story' Birmingham Post
'Few who pick up this latest offering from a master will be disappointed by the superior fare on offer here' Crime Time

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First British Edition Macmillan (1999)

Paperback - Pan (2000)

Bribery, Corruption Also
'And am I definitely to be spending the remainder of my days in this place? And no longer Inspector. From here on just Mr Ghote …'
Inspector Ghote is not a happy man. His wife has inherited a beautiful house in Calcutta - and she is determined that they both move from his beloved Bombay to live a life of luxurious retirement there.
But when the couple travel to the noisy but vibrant city to view her legacy they find their property in a terrible state of disrepair, a decaying ruin inhabited by squatters. Their lawyer, A.K. Dutt-Dastar, advises them to sell it immediately - but Ghote detects a whiff of corruption and is determined to get to the bottom of it.
The couple steadfastly dig their heels in and refuse to sell - but the corruption extends way up the political ladder.
And soon they are putting themselves in very great danger …
'As good a story as Keating has ever written, and the conclusion is as apt as it is touching' Birmingham Post
'The Indianness of it all is conveyed with utmost skill.' Evening Standard

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British Pbk Original - Flambard Press (1999)

Jack the Lady Killer
See Review by Andrew Taylor - author of the highly acclaimed Roth & Lydmouth Series
The Punjab in India. 1935. The sub-continent under the Raj. Fresh from his English boarding school. Jack Steele is a new recruit to the Indian Imperial Police and soon begins to acquire the attitudes of old India hands towards the people under their rule. Only a few months into his posting, Jack has to conduct a murder investigation when one of the British community at his Station, the sexually rapacious widow Milly Marchbanks, is found strangled. To Jack's consternation, the only clue implicates a member of the Britons' Club. But which one? While Jack goes round in circles, his self-effacing India sergeant, Bulaki Ram, discreetly nudges him along the way he needs to go.
H.R.F. Keating is one of the best known of contemporary British crime novelists, especially for his long series of Inspector Ghote mysteries set in India. Despite its setting, Jack the Lady Killer is something completely different as well as completely unexpected. It is one of the rarest forms known to literature, a detective novel in verse, Keating developing his rhyme-crime in nearly 300 fourteen-line stanzas. During a writing career spanning forty years, Keating has won many honours for both fiction and non-fiction, most notably the awarded of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger in 1996 for a lifetime's achievement. Since 1985 he has been President of the Detection Club in succession to some of the greats of British crime fiction, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie and Julian Symons.

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