leopards

Bangalore Detectives Club #4

I love this richly evocative series set in 1920s India. While that country did not achieve independence until 1947, unrest was already bubbling under, with an understandable resentment building toward the British who intruded on their country and culture, trying to remake it in their own image. While Negendra is far from a political writer, she introduces these sentiments into her stories organically, personified in this book by an unpleasant British planter.

As the story opens, our heroine Kaveri is feeling both confined by her pregnancy and her protective mother-in-law, while missing her husband, Ramu, who is in the state of Coorg attempting to help the people there with their medical needs.  Coorg was a big coffee growing region, controlled by the British until independence, and Ramu is staying with a friend who owns a plantation there. read more