Inspector Ghote's First Case

Inspector Ghote #25

by H.R.F. Keating, Sam Dastor (Reader)

6 compact discs Narrated by Sam Dastor

Genres: Mystery, India, Fiction, British Literature, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Detective

6 pages, Audio CD

First published May 1, 2008

About the author

Henry Reymond Fitzwalter Keating was an English writer of crime fiction most notable for his series of novels featuring Inspector Ghote of the Bombay CID.

H. R. F. KEATING was well versed in the worlds of crime, fiction and nonfiction. He was the crime books reviewer for The Times for fifteen years, as well as serving as the chairman of the Crime Writers Association and the Society of Authors. He won the CWA Gold Dagger Award twice, and in 1996 was awarded the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for outstanding service to crime fiction.

Series:
. Inspector Ghote
. Harriet Martens

Series contributed to:
. Malice Domestic
. Perfectly Criminal

Reviews

[Nev March · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inspector Ghote is an indecisive man but he learns to act and that too, quickly. This is a charming story but the caricature of Indians and the overdone Indian Englishisms soon wore me out. This is India as the English see it, not one of our own. A creditable effort, but one that felt incomplete and implausible. Where is the boy being held, at the end? Why does Ghote not rescue him? Not even mention him?

While the difficulties of a man dealing with delicate subjects is well portrayed, and the condescension of the ruling class displays the authors own sympathy for Indians, yet much does not ring true. This made sense When I read that H RF Keating did not visit India until after his books were published. Here is India from books written by Englishmen and women an India that no longer exists,

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the 25th and probably last of the Inspector Ghote police inspector novels. As the title implies this is a prequel-when the determined Inspector is first jumped up in rank so that he can be assigned to a special case as a favor to a high up government member. As always, Inspector Ghote is determined, relentless, honest, decent and put upon. Also he is as usual in amusing conflict with his outspoken wife who in this book is pregnant with their first child. A puzzling case with a very interesting setting in India. Very well written. Makes me want to go back and read some of the Inspector's cases that I missed.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun book. I listened to it on tape and I think that added to the pleasure because it's set in India and read by a native! Inspector Ghote is a loveable inspector forced to investigate a white man's claim that his wife committed suicide. And he figures it out and then has to report his findings. It reminds me of a Miss Marple story a little just fun to listen to and no foul language!!!!

[Zeb Kantrowitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though this is the second to last novel in the series, Keating decided to give us a look at his character at the beginning of his career. There are many things that we learn about the newly promoted Ghote who besides being invited to join the Criminal Division of the Bombay Police, which would mean that he would be moving to a nicer apartment than the one he had as an Assistant Inspector.

At the same time, Ghote and his wife are awaiting the birth of their first child, sometime in the next three to five weeks. He has been called to the apartment of the former Commissioner of the Bombay Police, even though he is supposed to be on 'leave' before taking up his new position. The retire Commissioner was the first Indian to take up that position prior to Indian Independence, and so was a Policeman of great importance and respect.

Ghote is asked to go upcountry to take a look at the suicide of the wife of a man he has known as a member of the prior Raj government. In a letter to the Commissioner, his old friend has asked that the cause of his wife's suicide be looked into. Ghote is impressed that the Commissioner has picked him for this duty though it is considered more of a favor that a 'real case'. But Ghote will have to leave Bombay to travel a couple of hours away from home as his wife is about to begin her confinement.

The rest of the story helps to define how in the subsequent books (looking at this as prequel) Ghote establishes his ability to fathom out clues and to combine little pieces of knowledge until his is able to see the complete story related to the mystery he is dealing with. All he needs to do to appear as the Indian equivalent of Lieutenant Colombo (Peter Falk, 1971-2003) is to get an old trench coat.
People tend to dismiss his intelligence because of the subservient way he seems to carry himself therefore causing people/suspects to underestimate him.

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The prequel. Sam Dastor reads HRF Keating's mystery.


3* - Inspector Ghote's Good Crusade (Inspector Ghote, #2)
3* - The Murder of the Maharajah (Inspector Ghote, #12)
2* - Inspector Ghote's First Case (Inspector Ghote, #25)

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a good piece of work.
How didn't I know ...?
Go out right now and read his Inpector Ghote stories.

[Medh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many years ago I read an Inspector Ghote story, the one where he travels from Bombay to Calcutta to solve a mystery. For the longest time that was the only one I had read and I had a vague recollection of how evocative it was in terms of describing the heat in India.
I found this one available as an ebook and thought it might be well worth revisiting but found it excruciating to get thru. As is well documented Keating wrote these books for the most part w/o having visited India and this book is definitely redolent of that.
The completely unnecessary and excessive use of the present participle/continuous, the doubling up of words - man, do they drag or what.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very much better than the only other Ghote novel I read a year or two ago. This one is the last, perhaps it took Keating 24 books to develop his craft.
A cosy novel, nothing serious, which smells a bit of Agatha Christie's The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor: A Short Story. I listened to the audiobook version read by Sam Dastor.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another prequel with Inspector Ghote, freshly appointed an Inspector, and on leave awaiting his reporting date, asked to look into the suicide of the wife of a British sahib in Mahableshwar. His task is to discover why she took her own life. Months after the event Ghote has to reconstruct events leading to her death. While he is away investigating, his new wife Protima is awaiting the birth of their first child; a son or a daughter. Very well written.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review to come.

[Ansie de Swardt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it very enjoyable, funny, warm and clever. Very non-PC I suppose these days.

[L · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the main character. The writing style/rhythm took a bit to get used to. An overall fun read.

[Cathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story, set in India, got too bogged down in minutiae and the mystery didn't seem to be much of a mystery.

[Nomad nimrod · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like it.

[Jim Leffert · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 24th detective novel in this series (also the next to last—it came out in 2008 and Keating died in 2011), this is actually a prequel to the others. It tells about the first case that this Bombay policeman encountered upon his promotion from Assistant Inspector to Inspector, way back in the late 1950’s or early 60’s. Young Ghote’s wife is in the latter stages of pregnancy but unfortunately for the rookie Inspector, a retired high police official sends him off into the distant countryside to investigate a former British bureaucrat’s wife’s apparent suicide.

Ghote is an entertaining and sympathetic character, operating in a colorful milieu, very much on the order of Mma. Ramotswe over in Botswana.  I also detected a little bit of Columbo in him, spicing things up. Barely out of the police academy and modest and unsure of himself, Ghote stumbles forward and through persistence, tenacity and obsessive mental activity, eventually figures out what really happened. Similar to Mma. Ramotswe, the young Inspector keeps referring to a textbook, in this case, Criminal Investigations by Hans Gross, but quotations from his wife’s favorite play, Hamlet, also help stimulate his thinking.

Encounters with other characters enrich the story. For example, Ghote must decide whether to trust a young boy who claims to have witnessed unusual goings on. He also encounters a conceited and highly regarded former academy classmate, now a local detective, who has already made his mind up about how the death happened,

At the outset, the narrative sounds suspiciously like a stereotyped parody of what Indian characters are supposed to be like, but this impression rapidly dissolves. Instead, we encounter a nuanced commentary on the legacy that British colonialism left on Indian society during those post-independence decades and the attitudes of those British that stayed behind.

I highly recommend this book—watching Inspector Ghote prod himself forward, overcoming doubts and difficulties, sinking his teeth into the ankles of the problem, and gradually, bit by bit, coming up with the solution, was a very enjoyable experience!

[Cheryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

Inspector Ghote's First Case: An Inspector Ghote Mystery is the prequel to the Inspector Ghote series that consists of twenty-six novels.

The year is 1960. Ganesh Ghote has just received a letter notifying him of his promotion to Detection of Crime Branch Inspector. The promotion has been long over due. In celebration of his promotion, Ghote and his pregnant wife plan a night out to see the Hamlet at the cinema. They never make it to the showing. Inspector Ghote receives a written message from his boss to pay a visit to former Bombay police commissioner,Sir Rustom Engineer.

Sir Engineer wants Inspector Ghote to investigate why his good friend’s wife, Iris would kill herself. Though Sir Engineer doesn’t hold much faith that much will come out of the investigation. He would be wrong.

This book started out strong but than quickly fizzed for me. I lost interest in the plot. This is because none of the characters were very memorable to me and I found the story line dry. To be honest I can’t remember much of what transpired between the characters. The Inspector Ghote series is one of the longest running series around. Seeing as to the fact that I didn’t think this book, I must be in the minority group. Inspector Ghote's First Case will be my first and last case.

[Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book looked interesting; I had never read any in the series; in fact I had not heard of the series until recently. A mystery series set in India – sounds good, I thought. The style has some similarities to the #1 ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith, but is not as good. Each of the respective detectives has their mentor, Precious Ramotswe has Clovis Anderson, and Ghote has Hans Gross. But after a while the similarity ends. I felt that while Smith treats Precious as a real person with real feelings and love of her country and so on, Keating treats Ghote as some kind of cartoon character with his idiosyncratic English and his decision-making methods. I found the portrayal to be facile and demeaning to the character. And the story was relatively basic as well; so while I finished it, I won’t be reading any more in the series. Two stars out of five.

[Loretta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the prequel for H.R.F. Keating's Inspector Ghote series. I found it a very refreshing mystery to read. Inspector Ghote, as you might tell by his name, lives and works in India. He lives in Bombay, India some years after India has gained independence from Great Britain. At the start of this story he has just been promoted to an actual Inspector rank and receives his first case. His wife is pregnant with their first child and Inspector Ghote finds himself torn between his two worlds-his new position as an Inspector with a unusual first case and his relatively new married life with a new addition imminently (ikmminently in Hindi English) arriving. How he manages to keep a balance and still solve what appears to be other than a murder is fast paced and well written, I thought. The use of Hindi English all throughout the book is very delightful to read.

[Rog Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had enjoyed the Inspector Ghote series though I did feel that the last books were not as good as the earlier ones. I also found that as HRF Keating's series featuring Harriet Martens progressed that her thought processes and even to a small extent her speech patterns were becoming more and more like Inspector Ghote so I stopped reading them. It has been a few years since I had read anything by HRF Keating but when I saw this recently written prequel in the library I thought I would give it a try. Inspector Ghote is an engaging character and I liked this book even though I did not find the plot satisfying and to be honest some aspects of the story did not actually make sense to me.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The newly promoted Ganesh Ghote should have a few weeks off, which he's planning on spending in Bombay with his pregnant wife. But an important, retired policeman asks him to travel to the hill station of Mahableshwar to learn why an Englishwoman committed suicide. Iris Dawkins died several weeks ago, but her husband, a retired sahib, is still trying to understand the tragedy. Unfortunately, the policeman in charge of the local station is Ghote's bete noir from his training days.

[Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another author who has written lots of books that I haven't read yet. Yahoo! This heart-warming tale of a detective in India who is going to be a first-time father and who wants to please both his somewhat demanding wife and his superiors in the police department while trying to solve his first challenging case as a detective is charming. I loved it!

[Kate Schindler · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a mystery set in India a few decades after Independence. The story was relatively intriguing, and the relationships between Indians and Britons felt spot on, but I found it incredibly tedious to read. No one ever came straight to the point, which I guess might be authentic, but still. I won't read any more Inspector Ghote books.

[J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice, very-very much like the earlier books. The who-dun-it is a minor part of the story, since there are not a lot of suspects. The story lies more in how Ganesh Ghote develops a body of evidence that will permit arresting the prime suspect. Ghote is a likable character. I love the series and the Indian accents, atmosphere, and history. If you're not into that, ☆☆☆.

[Jo Ann Fishburn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have heard good things about this series, so decided to give it a try. I really enjoyed this one, so I plan to track down the order of the books and read a few more. It was another good alternative to the more violent Easy Rawlins stories I'm reading.

[Kirsti S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

MCL. Light read.

Favorite line:
"A pregnant woman is deserving, not just of respect but of care, utmost care. Her mind is not always and always in her perfect control."

[Lizzytish · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this Indian detective!

[Bakul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun book. I listened to the audio book as well. Sam Dastoor's reading was excellent.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inspector Ghote is lovably earnest, lovably bumbling, and desperate to do a good job as a detective.

[Les Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

As stated in other reviews, I enjoyed all the Inspector Ghote books. This is not quite as good as previous ones, but still 5* to me.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

From BBC radio 4:
Sam Dastor reads HRF Keating's crime novel.