To coincide with a state visit by Queen Elizabeth II the British Crown jewels go on display in Mumbai. The wing of the museum where this display will sit is specifically built for the purpose to make it thief-proof but attractive for visitors. Any reader can infer the rest.
Detective Inspector Chopra, retired, sworn enemy to all crime, is an early visitor with his wife Poppy. But twenty visitors at a time are admitted to the inner sanctum where the crowns, orbs, tiaras, maces, and the Koh-i-Noor diamond are displayed. By the way, ‘Koh-i-Noor’ means ‘mountain of light.’
As Chopra inclines his head to read the card with one display his gaze travels past a face on the other side of the glass case, one that seems familiar, then the lights go out, both in the room and in Chopra’s head, while in the darkened room a gas immobilised everyone even as loud noises faintly registered on those losing consciousness.
Yes, the Koh-i-Noor diamond was taken, and nothing else, in the raid. The back wall of the room blown in (or was it out?) and the unbreakable glass in the case was broken. How could this happen?
When dusted off, Chopra ponders all of this in the back of his restaurant that caters to police officers (who are enemies of crime, and that criterion excludes quite a few) with Ganesha, his pet elephant. Poppy manages the restaurant and she and Chopra have all but adopted the one armed bus boy Irfan, who in turn dotes on Ganesha. Only Chopra’s mother-in-law remains a blue-bottle fly in the ointment, a very conspicuous one since she runs the front of the house at the restaurant, intimating the hardened officers who arrive and infuriating the chef with her interference.
The response to the embarrassing theft of the crown jewel is to slam-up a scapegoat immediately. The key performance indicator is thus satisfied. Who better than the hapless police officer who was responsible for security, an old comrade-in-arms of Chopra who is drawn into the case.
Chopra’s detective agency has prospered for there are many straying husbands to watch and young daughters who may be keeping the wrong company, but while profitable these matters are dead boring, though Ganesha has proven to be an ace at surveillance. He never tires, never blinks, never loses concentration. While Chopra naps in the specially designed baby-elephant transporting van, Ganesha keeps watch and nudges Chopra into consciousness when the target moves. Only in the streets of Mumbai would passers-by not notice an elephant.
To handle the routine cases, Chopra recruits his one-time senior sergeant who has dismissed from the police force by a jealous superior for no reason at all. While the sergeant has no education or training, he knows the streets and people of Mumbai better than anyone else, and his loyalty and dedication are unalloyed. He makes light work of even some tricky cases with Poppy’s help, while Chopra is drawn more deeply into the matter of the crown jewel.
His conversations with the Scots forensic officer that the Brits dispatched post-haste to the scene are amusing examples of culture clash, each lapses in the professional patois and linguistic idioms of their countries to the incomprehension of the other. When the Scot is describing the one-two-three boom of the explosive used, he caps the story with ‘and Bob’s your uncle!’ Chopra’s looks around for Bob. Then he hesitates and says he has no uncle Bob. The Scot thinks this might be a snide remark, but …. We should have heard more from this Scot later in the book but we do not.
Instead we get the red-faced, gigantic, humourless Inspector of Scotland Yard who shadows the investigating Indian officer, whom Chopra knows to be as incompetent as he is corrupt. The Yard Inspector seems to accept that Indian officer’s lead in arresting the security manager, i.e., until circumstances, involving an elephant, throw them together and he tells Chopra that the investigating officer is nutter who ought to be in the slammer himself instead of trying to beat a confession out of a fellow officer. They make an odd couple sort of alliance, pool their evidence and suspicions, and cooperate in an elaborate charade that reveals all. It involves a very large cake, but that is only the beginning. No spoiler.
Vaseem Khan
The touch is light though some of the material is dark, indeed, and Poppy has her own investigation among the cut-throat world of private high schools. She is ably assisted by the sergeant who has seen through many lies and sees through those told in the hallowed halls of learning.
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