The Dying Day by Vaseem Khan (Malabar House No. 2)

Another book by this brilliant author which takes us into the world of post British India. Persis Wadia is the only woman Police Inspector in India and boy has she got to face discrimination, snide remarks, looks and worse. Persis a Parsee (a small forward thinking minority community) has the support of her father but her Aunt who has looked after her since the death of her mother finds it tough to accept Persis's role in the masculine world she occupies. On the one hand Persis herself knows that she is going to find it singularly difficult to find a partner. But at the same time, her career is important to her and she is not going to allow anything to get in her way. The case of a missing book worth millions starts the case going, with the main protagonist going missing. He is an erudite scholar and it is only through the sheer brilliant workings of Persis's mind that she unravels the cryptic clues he leaves behind. A mix of detection and knowledge of the classics slowly unwinds the puzzle, and with the murder of a white woman (uncommon in post British India) the pressure is on to solve the case. When Italian diplomats also get involved in the case, it is obvious that big money is also somehow involved and it is a running battle for Persis with the reluctant help of her colleagues to prevent more murders and find out who is behind the robbery. A fascinating look at colonial India (post Colonial actually) with all the workings and administration as it were before. I loved this story (my second read of Persis's exploits). With all the inhibitions and difficulties of 1950s India. Sent to me by Hodder & Stoughton for an unbiased review, courtesy of Netgalley.