Raj Purwar

This book is the worst possible example of classic crime fiction imaginable….the crime itself is utterly absurd, the equally implausible villain is named at the very beginning and, although I have read the book many times, I don’t think I ever finished it, probably because it seems to get a bit boring towards the end….BUT…the bits describing events at the crime scene and the police interviews are as chilling as anything you could ever get in the myriad modern examples of the genre…AND although the central character is difficult to understand in the round, the best thing about the novel is actually the wonderfully tragi-comic scenes involving a cast of side characters as beautifully-written as anything that Dickens, for example, gave us in the same era….possibly my favourite book of all time after Moby Dick!