H.R.F. Keating

Page Updated: 04/04/03

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H.R.F. Keating - Page 3

The Inspector Ghote Mysteries

The Good Detective

Doing Wrong

The Rich Detective

Under a Monsoon Cloud

Paperback - Pan (1996)

The Inspector Ghote Mysteries
An Omnibus - Includes:
The Perfect Murder
Winner of the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award
'It was called the Perfect Murder right from the start. Every time Inspector Ghote saw the words he felt sweat spring up all along his shoulders. It was as if every one of India's 400 million people were looking at him, challenging him to break the Perfect Murder.
Inspector Ghote's Good Crusade
Frank Masters, founder of a Bombay home for vagrants, is dead. Murdered, it seems, by arsenic poisoning. Hounded by his superiors and hindered by a stream of lies, Inspector Ghote sets out on a perplexing crusade for a calculating killer . .
Inspector Ghote Caught in Meshes
When an American visitor is shot on the road from Bombay, Inspector Ghote is well and truly caught in the meshes of intrigue. Pulled between two conflicting secret service agencies, he is soon forced to question his own notions of loyalty.

'H.R.F.Keating has created in Ganesh Ghote an enchanting and engaging inspector.' P.D. James
'Inspector Ghote is one of the great characters of the contemporary mystery novel.' The New York Times

Hardback
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The Good Detective
HRF Keating, twice the recipient of Britain's Gold Dagger and two-time Edgar winner, follows his enthusiastically greeted The Rich Detective with this absorbing tale of felonious intent and foul play.
When a case from years ago returns to haunt him, Chief Constable Ned French realizes it could cost him his career-perhaps even his life.
Heather Jones, forced into a false murder confession after a harrowing late-night interview with French and a colleague, has now served fifteen years of her twenty-year sentence. In all that time she has never appealed her conviction.
But the situation has changed. Someone else has confessed to the crime, and a crusading attorney named Deborah Brooks is determined to get at the truth, even if it proves to be Ned French's ruin. While Ned fears Deborah, he is also strongly attracted to her.
Fighting for his reputation and his career, French gets a tip that could lead to the biggest coup of his working life: He is reliably informed that the Corrigan cousins are masterminding a huge shipment of cocaine into Britain - and he learns where it's going to land. Will French be able to pull off the arrest, or will events from his past overwhelm him before he has a chance?
And is he, or is he not, a good detective?
H. R. F. Keating, one of the pre-eminent crime writers of our day, asks some disturbing questions and finds some troubling answers in a riveting novel that will be long remembered.
Scribner edition 1995
'Keating presents a brilliantly shaking and unusual slant to the implicit leading question of his title: what does make a good detective in these troubled times?' John Coleman, Sunday Times
'Grips like a terrier' Mike Ripley, Daily Telegraph
A most impressive book' F.E. Pardoe, Birmingham Post

First British Edition Macmillan (1994)

Doing Wrong
'What have I done wrong?' H K Verma asked almost aloud to the dawn Banares sky as he climbed out of the wide flooded Ganges. 'Yes, I killed her. But I had to do it. It was right to do it...'
News of veteran freedom fighter Mrs Shoba Popatkar's murder sends sharp alarm signals to the highest echelons of the Bombay police. The brutal slaying of such a highly respected citizen is a national scandal. Justice has to be done. The officer in charge makes a quick arrest, but Inspector Ghote, with a watching brief is convinced that a vital piece of evidence has been overlooked...
Immediately before her death Mrs Shoba Popatkar visited the extraordinary holy city of Banares, and Inspector Ghote gets permission to go there and investigate on his own. What could have made some person or persons unknown follow Mrs Shoba Popatkar, upholder of a hundred good causes, all the way back to Bombay and strangle her?
Now that Ghote has persuaded his superiors to let him visit Banares, his very career depends on what he can discover there. But the local police are less than co-operative. Ghote has almost nothing to lead him to the answer - except an unassailable conviction that somewhere in Banares lurks a cunning and callous killer…
Critical acclaim for H.R.F.Keating
'Few if any contemporary writers are as entertaining as the remarkable H. R. F. Keating. May the redoubtable Ghote go on for ever.' Len Deighton
'H.R.F.Keating breathes new life into the classical detective story.' Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers
'The settings and the characters are delightful… the very last lines leave the reader with a smile and an 'Ah-hah'' 1001 Midnights
Mr Keating has a long-established winner in his sympathetic and lively hero.' The Times
'H. R. E Keating's novels about Bombay policeman Ganesh Ghote are masterpieces of imagination.' Time

Hardback
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The Rich Detective
In The Rich Detective, H.R.F.Keating introduces an English sleuth as fascinating as Ghote, and a bit of intrigue that, in its own way, is as exotic as Keating's descriptions of India.
Riches beyond the dreams of avarice are the last thing on Bill Sylvester's mind when he returns to England after a holiday in Spain. A detective inspector in South Mercia, Sylvester is greeted by an urgent summons form the chief constable himself. Meanwhile, the lottery ticket he bought so casually while on vacation lies forgotten in his wallet. Sylvester is asked to tackle a highly delicate case. An anonymous letter - alleging murder - received by the chief identifies a wealthy antiques dealer as the perpetrator of a ruthless scam against defenceless old ladies. Sylvester is soon on his way to the opulent home of Charles Roanoke - and what he witnesses there convinces him that the allegations against the dealer should be taken seriously.
Before long Sylvester finds he is alone in believing in Roanoke's guilt. Then he learns that his lottery ticket has won him almost a million pounds. Suddenly master of his own destiny, he resigns from the force. But Sylvester has become obsessed with pursuing Roanoke to the bitter end.
An end that proves far more bitter than he at first realises. For justice can sometimes exact a terrible price, even form a newly minted millionaire….
Mysterious Press edition (Warner - American)
'Very professionally executed with a genuinely fiendish villain.' Mike Ripley, Daily Telegraph
All the dry-eyed penetration of an English Simenon, coupled with Keating's usual sly humour: a treat not to be missed.' Kirkus Reviews
'A sophisticated work: a slice of edgy crime fiction that hints at dark obsessions percolating beneath the surface.' Publishers Weekly
'In a season bringing the greatest abundance of high-quality mysteries for some years, The Rich Detective is the richest.' Time Magazine

Hardback
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Under a Monsoon Cloud
Inspector Ganesh Ghote is involved in murder again, but this time he's on the wrong side of the law.
All had been going well at the sleepy hill station of Vigatpore, Ghote's temporary command, but the events of one terrible night - a night he can't forget - now threaten to ruin his life. It was quite without warning that his long-time hero, "Tiger" Kelkar, had descended on the station to make a formal inspection. Suddenly, to his horror, Ghote found himself unwittingly caught up in trying to cover up an accident - an accident which became a murder.
Now Ghote is in the extraordinary position of being the accused in an inquiry set up to elicit the truth about the fateful turn of events that night. Torn between loyalty to a superior officer and loyalty to the forces of law and order he represents, Ghote must face the most difficult test of his career.
This is the most impressive novel yet about Inspector Ghote, who has been called "one of the great characters of the contemporary mystery novel" (Newgate Callendar, The New York Times Book Review). He has never appeared a more appealing or sympathetic character.
Viking/Penguin New York
'Few if any contemporary writers are as entertaining as the remarkable H.R.F.Keating. May the redoubtable Ghote go on forever.' Len Deighton
'It's the best.' P.D.James
'In Under A Monsoon Cloud, Inspector Ghote and his creator, H.R.F.Keating, are in best form' The Listener