Cheating Death

Inspector Ghote #20

by H.R.F. Keating, Garard Green (Read by)

In Cheating Death, the 19th book in the Inspector Ghote series, Keating's much-loved hero faces one of the most perplexing cases in his career as he investigates the theft and sale of exam papers at a university. At first glance, the case is straightforward . . . but the inspector soon finds that answers don't come cheap.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, India, Crime

15 pages, Audio Cassette

First published January 1, 1992

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

[R.]

Inspector Ghote of the Bombay police investigates a cheating scandal at local Oceanic College. The campus novel meets the Indian novel meets the cozy English mystery.

The first two sentences add up to something deplorable: "There was nothing else for it. He would have to beat his wife."

And this is our introduction to the Inspector's psyche, and the psyche of the entire Bombay police department: "Wait. Was he really going to do that? Other husbands did, of course. Other Crime Branch officers even. And cheerfully boasted about it, gup-shupping in quiet moments of the day. Only way to keep the biwi in her place, they said. One good beating every now and again, and no nonsense after about who is making the decisions."

The comedy, if you please, comes from the fact that Ghote is, in fact, quite inept, meek and shy. Henpecked. To raise a hand to his wife would take superhuman effort both of the spirit and of the body. And there is a minor flashback of the courting years with Protima, his wife. He loves her. He loves her deeply.

So why the violent impulse? I think it's there, right there in the fact that the other officers do it.

***

Why did I choose this book? Because of Keating's own profile of Ghote in Great Detectives; because the library had few copies of Ghote adventures; because of the book jacket featuring an enigmatic cat, smiling and perched atop a red book (a gold dagger, and an Egyptian eye on the spine).

[Melinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this short mystery with its Bombay detective, although I can see why it may not be popular given that it starts out with the main character deciding he must beat his wife and there's clearly a condescending tone from the English author towards his subjects. I liked the quirky thoughts and rhetoric of the characters, but that probably doesn't go down well in our time, either. Inspector Ghote reminds me of Columbo -- "Just one more thing . . ." -- and he plays "dumb" to get information, yet he's also a bit slower than the reader. You'll figure out who did it before he does. Still, a fun read for me, and one I'd recommend if you can time travel back to a less socially conscious time.

[Ralph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspector Ghote may be the smartest detective in India, and the most unappreciated by the bureaucracy that towers over him. And he may also be the most obsessive detective, but what preoccupies his mind is not always the case at hand, or even the case deemed to be the most one-hundred-percent important investigation assigned by the high-up sahibs in Delhi. For Inspector Ghote, crime and criminals are relatively easy to understand, but the intricacies of Indian bureaucracy are very murky and devious; however, it is life itself (especially his personal life and the culture in which he was reared) that is absolutely unfathomable to him, the source of nearly all his doubt and worry.

In Cheating Death, Inspector Ghote has been assigned to conduct a follow-up investigation on a report filed by some air-dashing CBI wallahs by the Additional Commissioner of Crime Branch (the reader can easily sympathize with Ghote about the murkiness of bureaucracy)regarding a stolen test paper at Oceanic College. Ghote has as much luck understanding the college's bureaucracy as he does his own, and is only a little more successful with the society of the unprincipled, privileged and entitled students who are not above kidnapping their own dean to protest a canceled holiday or displaying goat-butchering knives on their desks as a warning to proctors not to interfere with their cheating activities. During the course of his investigation he determines that an attempted suicide by the apparent test thief (whom Ghote proves could not have been the culprit) is actually an attempted murder, which attains high importance with Ghote, but hot with his superiors or any of the self-absorbed academics and students he encounters.

Of course, the crimes are not what preys upon his mind, even though he diligently investigates them over the course of several days, taking the pre-dawn bus to the college in another city and returning long after dark (he does not drive, and this is not America). His mind is consumed by two very different problems. The first is how to beat his wife, when, and with what...shoe, belt, broom, hairbrush, what? After all, everyone knows how he does not keep her in her place, how she does whatever she wants. Technically, wife-beating is no longer required of a man, could even be seen as illegal, but all the other policemen brag about keeping their wives in their places, keeping them the model Indian wives. Yes, he knows what is expected of him, but it's all so brutal. Not only is he not a violent man (though he walks through those mean Indian streets) but the high-spiritedness that the others decry is part of what attracted him to her when they met at university years ago. What is a good Indian man to do?

The other thing that preys upon him, and which is actually somewhat tangential to the investigation, is the "cat in the adage." One of the more obtuse and pompous of the academics at Oceanic likens Ghote to Macbeth's cat caught in the adage. Now, everywhere he turns he sees the bars of the adage, and being trapped in that adage affects how he approaches and questions suspects, especially if they are a higher caste than him (yes, I know, no caste system in India, but of course there really is...just like everywhere else in the world) or if they assert their self-determined superior intelligence over the "stupid policeman," though Ghote is anything but stupid. Eventually, of course, Ghote remembers his schoolboy workbook exercises and figures out that an adage is not a trap but a cliche (the cat loves fish but cannot reach into a fishbowl because everyone knows cats don't like water). Once Ghote frees himself from that mind-trap, he can see more clearly all the mysteries around him...except that whole wife-beating thing of course.

Keating's Inspector Ghote series has its fan-set in America, but it's fairly small compared to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, Ghote suffers the fate of almost all foreign detectives (British detectives are not foreign, just Americans with good manners, great accents and odd spellings). It is an unfortunate fact that Indian, Russian, Turkish, Spanish, etc. detectives are more popular among mystery scholars and critics in America than they are among American mystery fans. And I think that undercurrent of resentment has increased in this PC age...rather than feel empathy for Ghote as he is caught between his nature and a cultural imperative (consider an American male who would rather cook on Thanksgiving than watch football), they immediately condemn him, the entire mystery series, and everything that does not fit into a brave new world. The Ghote series overseas faces a bit more of that prejudice now than before, but not nearly as much...the series is firmly ensconced in the hearts of fans, but perhaps more importantly nearly everyone on the other side of the Atlantic knows someone from Ghote's part of the world, culturally conflicted or not. If you would like a mystery that is a bit on the exotic side, with a detective who is trying his best to be a good man in a not-so-perfect world, trying to rise above a rule-bound bureaucracy to be a nemesis for Justice, you might want to give Inspector Ghote a try...perhaps even a chance.

[Donna Herrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fine mystery set in Bombay

[Cooper Renner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, but there’s an uncertain sense of British snobbery condescending to the less wonderful Indian. Hard to tell.

[Insert name here · Rating 1 out of 5]

The protagonist agonizes for much of the novel about how he should beat his wife because his colleagues do, because she is too independent and not submissive enough. In the end, he comes up with a rationalization for why he should not beat her while saving face with his colleagues. The ending is clearly meant to show how enlightened and heroic the protagonist is.

Ugh.

[Helen Fleischer · Rating 2 out of 5]

culprit too obvious, marital relationship off-putting

[Lizzytish · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an okay read. The murderer was easy to guess. The beating of the wife question??? Um, no...

[Margaret Drake]

A fun read with all the convoluted Inian English language.
Short, too.