Thursday, August 20, 2020

Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan

First Line: The call came in the deepest part of the night, the telephone's lusty urgency shattering the basement silence.

Bombay, New Year's Eve, 1949. India is at the threshold of a momentous new decade, a country looking to the future and wanting to put all memories of the bloody Partition behind it. Inspector Persis Wadia, India's first female police officer, is working the night shift at Malabar House, home to the city's most unwanted unit of police officers. She is mistrusted, sidelined, and consigned to the midnight shift.

Then the phone rings, and the murder of a prominent English diplomat-- the country's most sensational case-- falls right into her lap. Persis has this one chance to prove how good she is, and she is determined to succeed, regardless of the cost.

 I love Vaseem Khan's Baby Ganesh mystery series set in Mumbai, and I was eager to see what he could do with a historical mystery, especially one involving the first female police officer in India. Midnight at Malabar House introduces a character and a time period that I have to know more about. 

The horrors of the 1947 Partition loom large in this book, as they should considering the time in which it is set. The Partition was so momentous that its aftershocks are still being felt today, and the author talks about this a bit at the end of the book. 

The mystery here is deeply satisfying, but it is the character of Persis Wadia that holds center stage and refuses to turn loose. She is paired with Scotland Yard criminalist Archie Blackfinch, a relationship that should continue to prove increasingly interesting as the series progresses. Persis's wheelchair-bound father, Sam, owns a well-known bookshop in Bombay, and this is where Persis has grown up-- now with ever more frustrating visits from her Auntie Nussie who's determined to get Persis married off and away from all this police nonsense.

The main thing that makes Persis such a fascinating character is her ironclad sense of morality, her belief in the new India, and her youth. She has the pig-headed righteousness of youth, convinced that she's always right, convinced that her way is the moral-- and only-- way. She doesn't have a frivolous molecule in her body, and she certainly didn't inherit a humor gene. Persis could be an obnoxious character, but she's not. Her naïveté means that it never occurs to her that the reason why those powerful government men are content to let her head the investigation is because they are convinced that she's incapable of solving it. She's a mere woman after all! As she flings herself at one obstacle after another, we see that some of those sharp edges of hers are going to be worn down with time.

I am looking forward to watching Persis Wadia mature as a human and as a police officer, and I look forward to Vaseem Khan's next book in the series with a great deal of anticipation. For those of you who are familiar with Sujata Massey's excellent Perveen Mistry historical series, give Midnight at Malabar House a try. I think you're going to like it.


Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan
eISBN:9781473685499
Hodder & Stoughton © 2020
eBook, 329 pages

Historical Mystery, #1 Persis Wadia mystery
Rating: A-
Source: Net Galley
 

16 comments:

  1. I can't tell you how glad I am to hear you enjoyed this one, Cathy. I really like the Baby Ganesha series, too, and I was so hoping that this one would also be good. It sounds terrific, and I do like a sense of history...

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    1. This book is so different from Khan's Baby Ganesh series. Khan is such a talented writer.

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  2. The time period alone would pull me in! A new series--Yay!

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    1. That always brings a smile to my face, too!

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  3. This books sounds good. I love Sujata Massey's books set in the 1920s in India.
    Hmmm, on the history of Partition, I've met Muslims whose families were attacking during this period. And now the government has enacted anti-Muslim laws.
    And I know people whose families are from India who want it to be a tolerant multicultural country with equality for all.
    So I'm not sure of the point of view in the books.

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    1. Persis is all for a free and independent India. She has no love for the British. As far as the Partition atrocities go, Khan shows that both sides had blood on their hands.

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  4. Sorry, I meant to say Muslim families were attacked before and after Partition. So it's complicated.
    I do look for point of view in a book.

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  5. Your review really makes a feeling of excitement to rise in me.I have never read a Mystery with a setting in India. Of course, I've read other Fiction in that location.

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    1. There are three mystery series set in India that I love: Tarquin Hall's Vish Puri P.I. series set in present-day New Delhi, Vaseem Khan's Baby Ganesh P.I. series set in present-day Mumbai, and Sujata Massey's historical series set in 1920s Bombay. (And I have a feeling that I'll be adding this new series to my favorites list!)

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  6. I had no idea, looks good. I liked Massey's first two books, so bet it is a good recommendation indeed.

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  7. Sujata Masssey's series is one of my favorites. The protagonist, based on the first woman lawyer in India, is a terrific character.

    I can't wait for her next book.

    I read one baby Ganesh book and enjoyed it.

    I must check out this book.

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  8. I'm sick and ready to rumble -- buying new books, of course. The police can do the rumbling. But I am bereft without books. And I don't feel like rolling the laptop into the bedroom to read the library online books. But I'm mosey around your lists and find some books. Is Jess Montgomery's new book out? I can buy Val McDermid's new book.

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    1. Montgomery's got three books out in that series, the third being The Stills. The Echoes doesn't come out until March.

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