Mysteries of mystery writing

One of the nicest things that happens in life is the unexpected discovery of a new author who has not been hyped by reviewers and LitFests. It doesn’t happen often but enough times to keep one in a state of pleasant anticipation. I have been lucky in this regard because I have come across one every few years.

I discovered another such writer three weeks ago. Her name is Sujata Massey and it was the sheerest chance that I found her book, called  Murder on Malabar Hill. It was earlier published under a different title.

It had come to my sister, actually. She edits a semi-academic journal called The Book Review  which doesn’t review fiction. I frequently forage there and occasionally strike what Americans call pay dirt.

Ms Massey’s book was at the very top of a huge pile of discards. I read the first page and was immediately hooked because, well, if there’s one thing I can do quite well by now is to detect classy writing when I see it.

Ms Massey, Google told me, was born in England and has been living in those parts ever since. But she has written this book about early 20th century Bombay, now Mumbai. It reminds me of Kiran Doshi’s Jinnah Often Came to Our House another under-rated book by a classy writer.

I had had a similar pleasant experience some years ago when my son introduced me to a writer called Shamini Singh, a woman of Indian, Sikh descent who lives in Singapore or used to. She has created a character called Inspector Singh of the Singapore police. Her sardonic style is superb and the skirmishes between Mrs Singh and her husband genuinely Indian.

Bombay and its minor parts

It’s not just about Bombay. The main characters are from two minority communities — Parsis and Muslims. The leading character is a young Parsi woman called Perveen Mistry, India’s first female solicitor who starts to solve a murder mystery involving the Muslim family that was a client of her father’s law firm.

Murder on Malabar Hill book cover | Photo: Amazon

But the mystery alone is not the chief attraction of the book. It is also the writing, which is calm and unhurried and the attention to details. The story just moves along quietly like a Chinese meal of dozens of courses till you suddenly realise that you have reached the end.

Sometimes, though, you wonder which the main aspect is or should be—the mystery or the description of how Parsis and Muslims lived in Bombay in the first quarter of the 20th century. This is where the little details enrich the book and make it a marvellous read. So it is good to know that the second Parveen mystery is due in May. 

It will be interesting to find out how Ms Massey, who has won many awards, evolved as a writer of crime fiction. She made her name writing a series of mysteries where the detector, if not detective, is a Japanese-American woman called Rei Shimura. I have yet to read those but I shall.

Pale shadows

After reading these two writers it is hard not to wonder about a few other foreigners who have created Indian detectives. The first, at least as far as I know, was HRF Keating with his Inspector Ghote series. 

There are two other foreigners whose crime mystery books I have read. Neither is particularly good, possibly because of the inability to suppress the patronising tone. Keating also had that difficulty. 

To these three writers Indians are somehow slightly ludicrous figures who, so to speak, talk in sing-song voices and shake their heads when they want to say yes.  So while those books are good for a very quick afternoon or late night read, the quality of writing is just so-so. 

For me, that is a major shortcoming in any book. It’s like listening to music that  isn’t done well and therefore lacking.

That said, I am not a great fan of Indians who write crime thrillers. Their numbers are growing. I have done my best to read them but always given up after about 50 pages. Again, the reason is the same — very indifferent writing.

Which brings me to the main question: What do people look for in crime mysteries? A good story, never mind the bad writing? Or good writing, never mind the insipid mystery? 
 

You can take your pick.