Shy, self-questioning Inspector Ghote, 'one of the great creations of detective fiction' (Alexander McCall Smith), faces a crisis of conscience when he is asked to ignore the murder of an unimportant colleague Newly-promoted Inspector Ganesh Ghote is not having a good morning. His office is too hot, his assistant Bikram is late for work and he can't concentrate on his interminable paperwork, distracted by an insistent, unpleasant smell. Ghote's day does not improve when he discovers its horrible source: Bikram's severed head, wrapped in newspaper and stuffed in his office rubbish bin. Who would want to kill a lowly peon? And why would they plant the evidence in the heart of the Bombay Police Crime Branch? Ghote is already planning where to start his investigations when he's brought up short: his new boss, the forbidding Assistant Commissioner Divekar, thinks the crime altogether unsuitable for their department, and orders him to quietly dispose of the body ....

Quietly dignified Inspector Ghote, 'one of the great creations of detective fiction' (Alexander McCall Smith), finds himself trapped on a train with a fellow passenger who may - or may not - be the legendary confidence trickster he is travelling to collect, in this classic mystery - with a brand-new introduction by bestselling author Vaseem Khan. When Inspector Ganesh Ghote boards the train to Calcutta, he's looking forward to spending forty hours detached from his responsibilities, but nevertheless still doing his job. He is on his way to collect legendary swindler A. K. Bhattacharya, who's defrauded wealthy art-lovers for years, and bring him back to Bombay to stand trial. But his peace and quiet is immediately disturbed by a chatty fellow traveller, who, Ghote soon realises, talks relentlessly but never gives anything personal away. Who is this man, who never takes off his sunglasses, and whose hair appears freshly dyed? The...

An independent island state in the North Atlantic has fallen under the sway of Rolph Mylchraine, a landowner who has gained ascendancy by stage-managing witchcraft orgies and purveying cheap liquor. Opposing him is Keig, a peasant of extraordinary physical strength who gradually emerges leader on the grand scale. Through their developing struggle, which becomes a guerrilla war in the classic mould, echoes the sombre theme of the fatal tendency of power to corrupt. Mr Keating, already acknowledged as a writer of distinguished crime novels, has produced at perhaps the height of his powers a book that is not only a new departure for himself but also genuinely original.

Inspector Ghote embarks on one of his strangest cases when he is ordered to prevent a murder - the killing of a precious flamingo in the Bombay zoo. And then there is the racehorse fancied to win the local Derby, which gets replaced by a donkey... Ghote finds things going disastrously as bit by bit he unearths the traces of a monstrous practical joker. But then the fun stops - and Inspector Ghote has a more serious murder on his hands.

Inspector Ghote, 'one of the great creations of detective fiction' (Alexander McCall Smith), discovers why blackmail is known as the 'iciest sin' when he sets a trap for a blackmailer �- and falls into it himself, in this classic mystery with a brand-new introduction by bestselling author Vaseem Khan. Miss Dolly Daruwala may well be the most practised blackmailer Bombay has ever seen, or so Inspector Ghote's superiors tell him. Dolly has angered - and impoverished - many highly placed officials, and has become an embarrassment to the influential Parsi community. They want an end to her vile practices. To his deep dismay, Ghote discovers that he has been selected to conduct a highly irregular, and illegal, act of his own: break into the blackmailer's apartment and catch her in the act. But what the good detective ends up witnessing, from his uncomfortable position under Miss Daruwala's bed, is a crime of an even great magnitude: murder....

The best of the shorter adventures of Inspector Ghote, 'one of the great creations of detective fiction' (Alexander McCall Smith), are brought together in this page-turning collection of short stories - with a brand-new introduction by bestselling author Vaseem Khan. Inspector Ganesh Ghote of the Bombay CID stands alongside Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes as one of the best-loved of fictional detectives. Mild mannered, often hamstrung by his refusal to accept bribes or force false confessions, but unparalleled in his determination to catch his killer, Ghote has delighted readers since his first appearance in print in 1967. This collection of short stories brings together some of the best of Ghote's shorter adventures. From 'The All-Bat Hat' to 'Murder Mustn't At All Advertise, Isn't It?', these stories celebrate Ghote and his painstaking investigative powers. Plus, an introduction by H. R. F. Keating himself gives a fascinating insight into the...

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 because he tries to see both sides of every story. And if he hadn't on this occasion, the murder of Professor Unwala - Nobel Prize winner of 1945 - would have been recorded as a tragic accident. Was the elderly man a victim of a violent burglary? Or of a racist assault by Britforce troopers? Or did he know something about the collection of Celtic coins thought to be buried nearby? Clearly Inspector Benholme has a number of leads to follow up. Unfortunately they all point to one person - Conor Benholme. What does a 'soft cop' do when his teenage son is also his prime suspect?About the AuthorH. R. F. Keating was born at St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, in 1926. He went to Merchant Taylors, leaving early to work in the engineering department of the BBC. After a period of service in the army, which he describes as 'totally undistinguished', he went to Trinity College, Dublin, where he became a scholar in modern languages. He was also the crime books reviewer for The Times for fifteen years. His first novel about Inspector Ghote, The Perfect Murder, won the Gold Dagger of the Crime Writers Association and an Edgar Allen Poe Special Award.

<b><i>Indefatigable Inspector Ghote, 'one of the great creations of detective fiction' (Alexander McCall Smith), investigates a young woman's puzzling disappearance in swinging sixties London.</i></b> Inspector Ganesh Ghote of the Bombay CID is determined not to put a foot wrong when he arrives in England, the land of calm, dignity and order. He is, himself, on the most dignified of missions: attending the Emergency Conference on the Smuggling of Dangerous Drugs, on behalf of his hospitalised boss. But, almost immediately, things go wrong. Not only is his suitcase the shabbiest at the airport, but he is unexpectedly met in the Arrivals hall by a noisy, weeping relative, who clutches his feet and implores him to investigate the disappearance of a seventeen-year-old girl known, mystifyingly, as the Peacock. Much against his will, Ghote finds himself dividing his precious time in London between his duties at the conference and his unofficial investigations...

Sent to a remote part of India to find out who could benefit from Judge Asif's death, Ghote can get no cooperation from the judge until it becomes evident that the anonymous threats are coming from someone in the judge's household.

An independent island state in the North Atlantic has fallen under the sway of Rolph Mylchraine, a landowner who has gained ascendancy by stage-managing witchcraft orgies and purveying cheap liquor. Opposing him is Keig, a peasant of extraordinary physical strength, resulting in a guerrilla war.In The Strong Man, Keating has produced a unique and original cast of characters to illustrate the fatal tendency of power to corrupt.

Inspector Ghote, 'one of the great creations of detective fiction' (Alexander McCall Smith), plays an unwitting game of cat and mouse with a cunning killer in the holy city of Benares, in this classic mystery - with a brand-new introduction by bestselling author Vaseem Khan. The late Mrs Shoba Popatkar was a beloved national figure, known throughout India for her lifelong commitment to virtuous causes. But now her life has been brutally snuffed out, and the killer comes from the most unlikely place: the holy city of Banares, where the waters of the Ganges welcome thousands for the ultimate pilgrimage. Inspector Ghote of the Bombay CID, sent to investigate the peculiar circumstances surrounding her murder, feels only too keenly the official pressure to come up with a simple solution. But the clues are scanty, and his only guide in the unfamiliar city is a garrulous old inspector who seems determined to tell Ghote every historical anecdote...

<b><i>Inspector Ghote, 'one of the great creations of detective fiction' (Alexander McCall Smith), investigates a high-profile murder and finds liars wherever he looks.</i></b> When American millionaire and philanthropist Frank Masters dies of arsenic poisoning, Inspector Ganesh Ghote of the Bombay CID takes a moment to picture himself in the papers, triumphantly solving the case. This is no ordinary murder, and he knows it will attract a great deal of attention. But the reality of the situation soon takes over: not only does Inspector Ghote know nothing about arsenic, but the key witnesses all seem deeply unreliable. Who can he trust at the Frank Masters Foundation for the Care of Juvenile Vagrants? The chef who tells him only what he wants to hear? The acerbic Dr Diana and her shifty dispenser? Or – least appealingly – two infuriating young boys known only as Edward G. Robinson and Tarzan? The good inspector doggedly investigates, but the more...

Inspector Ghote, 'one of the great creations of detective fiction' (Alexander McCall Smith), faces snakes of both the reptile and human kind when he's called in to investigate a drug smuggling case turned deadly in this classic mystery - with a brand-new introduction by bestselling author Vaseem Khan. Inspector Ganesh Ghote is taken aback when Bombay's Commissioner of Police visits him at home early one morning, with a confidential request. The commissioner's film-star friend, Asha Rani, has asked for help with an unpleasant matter at the charity she supports, the Mira Behn Institute of Medical Research. Someone is smuggling samples of an experimental medicine out of the institute, made from the venom of poisonous snakes, and the last batch nearly killed film director - and Asha's 'close friend' - Mihir Ganguly. Ghote's task, he discovers, is to find and arrest the smuggler - on some other charge. Dismayed to be asked to frame a criminal...