Page Updated: 01/04/2009

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H.R.F. Keating - Page 3

The Soft Detective In Kensington Gardens once… Asking Questions The Bad Detective The Inspector Ghote Mysteries

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Paperback - Pan (1999)

First British Edition Macmillan (1997)

The Soft Detective
See Review by Martin Edwards - creator of the highly acclaimed, Liverpool based Harry Devlin Mysteries
"So, I admit to myself now I have often failed to do the hard thing. Not always, but frequently enough. And I failed because I so easily saw how and why someone - Conor, Vicky, a friend or acquaintance, a criminal I have to deal with - had done whatever it was they had done, and I had pardoned them." The Soft Detective
It's not often a Nobel Prize winner gets murdered ... On your patch ... very likely by a member of your own family…
DCI Phil Benholme has the reputation for being a little soft - but it's only because he tried to see both sides of every story. And now he is faced with the murder of Professor Unwala, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1945.
Was the elderly man a victim of robbery? Or of a racist assault by Britforce troopers? Or did the Professor know something about the Hampton Hoard, a collection of Celtic coins thought to be buried somewhere nearby? Clearly Inspector Benholme has a number of leads to follow up. Unfortunately they all point one person - Coner Benholme.
What does a 'soft cop' do when his teenage son is also a prime suspect ... ?
'Keating, the elder statesman of crime fiction, understands how deviants think … we can hear the rough-edged voice of a hard-bitten and unscrupulous policeman. He is very plausible and ... Keating masterly as ever, manages to evoke sympathy.' Times Literary Supplement
'Compulsive reading... A masterpiece of storytelling.'' Birmingham Post
'Another first-class mystery from one of the doyens of British crime writing' Sunday Times
'Keating creates believable characters in a crisp writing style and a storyline that grips the reader' Herald Express

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British Pbk Original - Flambard Press (1997)

In Kensington Gardens once…
See Review by Andrew Taylor - author of the highly acclaimed Roth & Lydmouth Series
In Kensington Gardens once... the author, waist down on the left, restraining his son Simon from plunging into the Round Pond forty years ago. This is the only known photograph of Harry Keating in Kensington Gardens, which provides the link between the ten stories in this collection. Keating first got to know Kensington Gardens in 1956 when he moved to London to work as a journalist on the Daily Telegraph.
Gwen Mandley, who has illustrated this book with twelve drawings of Kensington Gardens, is well-known in the London art world and has shown her paintings in numerous exhibitions and galleries over a long period of time. After studying at Manchester School of Art, she worked as an artist for Oldhams Press before serving in the ATS during the Second World War. For her work in the War Office she was awarded an MBE. After the war, she became Art Director of the Civilian Bureau of Current Affairs, and later headed an art studio for a leading advertising agency. She is a member of the Council of the Chelsea Art Society.

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Paperback - Pan (1997)

Asking Questions
From the 1996 Cartier Diamond Dagger award winner comes the latest in his highly popular Bombay set Inspector Ghote series…
At the Mira Behn Institute for Medical Research someone is smuggling out a dangerous drug, made from the venom of highly poisonous snakes. Inspector Ghote's suspect is the snake-handler Chandra Chagoo. But Chagoo is now lying dead on the floor of the Reptile Room, a Russell's viper slithering across his back. At first it seems a tragic accident. But then Ghote starts asking questions. Questions for which - before very long - he'd rather not know the answers....
‘HRF Keating has created in Ganesh Ghote an enchanting and engaging inspector.' PD James
‘This latest book is a fine addition to the canon.’ Crime Time

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First British Edition Macmillan (1996)

The Bad Detective
'Caught. Jack knew he had been caught. Like a fish jerked all in a second out of the water where it had been contentedly swimming. Just because it had nosed at a tempting morsel… There was no way out now.'
Detective Sergeant Jack Stallworthy has been accepting backhanders for most of his career. And why not? He's spent thirty years putting villains behind bars, surely he's entitled to a little nest-egg?
Lily, the pretty wife he deeply loves, dreams of retirement on the paradise island of Ku Samui, but Jack will happily settle for a bungalow in Devon.
Until, that is, influential businessman Emslie Warnaby offers him Ku Samui on a plate. On rather, first-class air tickets to the island, plus the deeds of ownership to the Calm Seas Hotel. All Jack has to do in return is steal an incriminating file from the Fraud Investigation office at police headquarters - which is, he discovers, as secure as Fort Knox.
As Warnaby's deadline grows ever nearer - and Lily ever more impatient for her life in paradise - Jack plunges deeper and deeper into crime. And soon there is no going back…
'Masterly as ever' Times Literary Supplement
'Brilliant' Yorkshire Post

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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

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