Krishnan Srinivasan, a former Foreign Secretary, has, after retirement, diverted himself and thousands of delighted readers with stories of criminal investigations by a low-key and soft-spoken Somali diplomat based in Kolkata, Michael Marco. After a distinguished diplomatic career, Marco came to Kolkata to research African presence in India, took assignments from the Indian government (which conferred a Bharat Ratna on him), and periodically assisted the Kolkata Police. After setting out Marco’s activities in five earlier books, Ambassador Srinivasan has paired him with a young and ebullient former police officer and now private detective, Koel Deb (“Minnie” to close friends).
is their second outing, though they investigate different cases that have hardly any links with each other. Koel was hit by a bullet in her left arm in an earlier police encounter with a known criminal and acquired a prosthetic arm, a half-pension, a Glock-17, and a Harley-Davidson Elektra. The motorcycle has been adapted to her injury and is now her principal mode of transport through Kolkata and neighbouring towns.
is straightforward. A prominent Mumbai-based film producer, Ranvir Sethi, has been murdered in his hotel room in Burdwan, two hours from Kolkata. He had gone there to locate a director, Vishnu Baras, who had made a students’ film, , about two decades ago.
Judged as “softcore” by the moral norms of the times, both the film and its director had vanished from the public eye. But, o.
