Keating, HRF - Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg

Because it had been for my shelves for a long and I had nothing else or better to do, I finally read H.R.F. Keating's "Inspector Ghote Breaks An Egg" that I'd bought a zillion years ago and though I wouldn't call it a disappointment, it hardly was an illumination. The setting is well-done (I'm a sucker for anything Hindi) the writing is fluid and keeps you turning the pages and the characters reasonably vivid if one-dimensional. What caused me to cringe was the plot, which is near non-existent. No! Not near! It IS non-existent. Until the last page was turned, I desperately hoped that something would happen - a unexpected twist, a masterful trick of misdirection, which would shake the whole thing down and reveal the simple was not so simple. Alas, nothing like that happened. The simple was indeed simple - or, should I say, simplist.

I must admit I am not familiar with Keating - it must be the second or third book of his that I read, and none made me much of an impression so far. But this one was the most radically bland piece of plot I met in my lifetime.

Xavier