Keating, HRF - The Body in the Billiard Room (1985)

Much better than The Murder of the Maharajah, another spoof on the GA detetive story. Ghote is sent to Ootacamund, an Indian hill station where time hasn't changed since the 1930s, to investigate the murder of a billiards marker on the table where snooker was invented by Neville Chamberlain (his claim to fame, rather than letting the Germans invade Czechoslovakia). The characters are Indian versions of stock figures, e.g. the mysterious widow, the rich squire and his unfaithful younger wife, and the wealthy man of mystery who may be a criminal. The plotting is better than normal for Keating: the murderer is the least likely person (who commits suicide because Ghote turns a blind eye) and the method is fairly clued.

Although the book is an homage to the trad detective story, it also points out its lack of reality (the bit where Ghote reads Mrs McGinty's Dead and Keating contasts Christie with real life - the thuggish local cop, a corrupt bully). Note also the clearing of all the suspects, a (very brief) false solution, then the real one; and that the characters read Into the Valley of Death by Evelyn Hervey (a.k.a. HRF Keating)

Nick Fuller