St. Martin's, Nov 2001, 23.95, 272 pp.
ISBN: 0312269528
Most of the inspectors of the Mumbai (Bombay) Crime Branch are working on the shocking murder of business mogul Anil Adjami killed in his impregnable home on Mahdi Island. However, Deputy Commissioner Kabir assigns Inspector Ganesh Ghote a different case. Ghote works alone on uncovering the identity of “Yeshwant”, a cat burglar nicknamed for a seventeenth century hero.
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Ganesh's scrutinizes the crimes by visiting the scenes and interviewing the victims, but seems to make little progress on the case. He meets an old friend; the recently widowed Swedish expatriate Axel Svensson, who begins to help on the investigation. As he gets closer to solving his case, Ganesh finds a link between the B&E robberies and the unsolved murder. Still, will he crack both cases or will Ganesh find no final solutions to the two seemingly tied together crimes he now investigates.
The latest Ganesh Ghote Indian police procedural is an engaging investigative tale that stars an interesting lead character. The story line is cleverly designed so that readers see inside the head of the kind Ganesh as he struggles with the cat burglar case and ultimately the homicide. Though the audience will need to adjust to Ganesh's speech pattern (as with the previous novels) most readers will believe BREAKING AND ENTERING is worth the time as author H.R.F Keating provides fans with a strong who-done-it.
Harriet Klausner
The review of this Book prepared by Harriet Klausner
