Murder in Burdwan

Here is a murder mystery with a difference: an interesting opening party scene in Kolkata, a celebrity murder in Burdwan, and a tortuous search for the elusive culprit. In the process, the reader is exposed to a multiplicity of well-etched characters and some fine locales in West Bengal. The front cover of the 195-page novel shows a young, beautiful girl bathing in a lake, which titillates but also sharpens the curiosity about the mysterious murder.

Krishnan Srinivasan, a former diplomat, presents his latest offering, a part of his sizeable series of novels and stories built around the unforgettable Koel Deb, a former female police officer-turned-private investigator, and Michael Marco, a retired ambassador from Somaliland, based in Kolkata for a long period. The brainy duo, share an unexplained mutual affection that remains undefined till the end, helps to unravel the mystery with reliable weapons of logic and reasoning.

To produce whodunit type of stories, the author must have a fertile imagination, an eye for detail, an intensely logical mind, and a pen that effortlessly paints portraits of characters flitting in and out of his not-so-straightforward narrative. He banks on the reader’s failure to spot accurate but minor hints, and expects the reader to fall for big traps laid out consciously to make him draw wrong conclusions. Until the end when the plot is unveiled, and everything falls into place neatly. So, to enjoy Srinivasan’s stories, one must read slowly, savour his words and turn of phrases, and marvel at his convincing pen sketches of people one meets every day in real life.

The central issue in this story revolves around a famous Bollywood film director who travels from Mumbai to Kolkata and then to Burdwan, a 6,000-year-old town, “once home to Kazi Nazrul Islam and Batukeshwar Dutt.” He is in search of a talented filmmaker who made a soft-core porn film some three decades ago. Pornography may be considered bad, but if handled with a blend of art and aesthetics, it can be a piece of excellence as the beautiful Sylvia Kristel demonstrated in Emmanuelle. The filmmaker remains untraceable, but the visiting film director is found dead in his hotel room within a few hours of his arrival in Burdwan.

Koel Deb is pressed into service by the state’s home minister to hunt for the murderer. An attractive woman with a mind of her own, she loves moving around on her Harley-Davidson motorcycle and does not hesitate to flash her Glock 17 handgun or her bionic arm, the legacy of a past brush with criminals, in her self-defence.  Her companion and guru, Michael Marco, figures much less in this book in comparison to the author’s other novels and stories.

As the narrative unfolds bit by bit through the painstaking investigation carried out by Koel, one comes across many realities of life in a small town of Bengal: the resentment and non-cooperation of the local police; the anger of local Bengali workers against Nepalis, pahadis and Bangladeshis who are seen as job snatchers; and a mayor who is worried about the murder’s impact on local politics and his political future in his home town.

The author artistically presents his women characters in real-life hues. They are quite a contrast from each other: Jyoti Datta, the militant feminist ready to fight for every woman’s cause, with a DoSomething Now colourful sticker pasted “over her left breast”; Kamala Rana, a slim and tall woman full of enthusiasm and energy, who is the film director’s “timekeeper, manager and minder”; and Nicole Gyne, the wife of Gyne Photo Services’ owner, who is “a self-conscious beauty and she knew how to impose it on an audience.”

The last few pages are simply brilliant. When despite all her hard work, detective Koel Deb is at her wits’ end, Michael—armed with his earthen African wisdom—comes forward to assist in deciphering the mystery. As he prepares to identify the murderer, he keeps quiet for long, staring down at the table in front of them. “I knew the signs,” said Koel, “and so I kept silent. Michael’s understandings were always at right angles to life as we understand it.”

When you are tired of the daily drudgery and utterly bored watching the mindless programmes on TV or scrolling down X and FB, this is the book for you! It will keep you engrossed for several hours, exercise your mind, and then you will marvel at the author’s ingenuity and creativity.

About The Author

Rajiv Bhatia

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