Showing results by narrator "Sam Dastor" in All Categories

Lieutenant Dev Singh dutifully spends his days recording the memories of people who, struck with incurable depression, will soon have their minds erased in order to be more productive members of society. At night though, hidden in the dark, Dev remembers and writes in his secret journal the special moments shared with him—the small laugh of a toddler, the stillness of a late afternoon, the first flutter of love. But when the Bureau finds out that he has been recounting the memories—and that the depression is in him too—he is sent to a sanitarium to heal.

British detective writer H. R. F. Keating was best known as the creator of Inspector Ghote of the Mumbai CID. He won two Crime Writers’ Association Gold Daggers, and in 1996 was awarded the Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement. Included here are dramatisations of two of his most popular murder mysteries, set in 1930s India and Victorian London, plus a short clip from Radio 4’s Bookshelf featuring the award-winning author.

I forget what took me to Fosterganj in the first place. Destiny, perhaps, although I'm not sure why destiny would have bothered to guide an itinerant writer to an obscure little hamlet in the hills. Chance would be a better word. For chance plays a great part in all our lives. And it was just by chance that I found myself in the Fosterganj bazaar one fine morning early in May....

Former government minister Ralph Singh is the perpetual outsider: displaced, disillusioned, and now living in exile, Ralph reflects on his earlier life and the searing effects of colonialism. Ralph's constant estrangement sees him ever attempting to fit into various communities, only to find home in more transient spaces. Born on the tropical island of Isabella, he is one of West India's many "Mimic Men".

This was no ordinary murder, for the victim was Frank Masters, millionaire and philanthropist. The case was bound to attract much public attention. But Inspector Ghote finds that his demands for evidence are met with nothing but lies and evasions.

Real estate developer Dharmen Shah’s offer to buy out the residents of Vishram Society - a formerly respectable, now crumbling apartment complex that abuts the infamous Dharavi slums - is more than generous. But one man stands in the way of Shah’s luxury high- rise: Masterji, a retired schoolteacher who will not leave his home in Vishram’s Tower A.

Inspector Ghote of the Bombay police has been regulated to antipickpocket patrol, where he promptly gets himself into one of those fearful fixes which are equally the product of his faults and his virtues.

No great composer’s story is more predominantly happy than Haydn’s, though even his has its share of clouds. A classic rags-to-riches tale, it sees him move from humble beginnings through decades as a liveried servant to his emergence as the most popular and successful composer of his time. One of the healthiest and least neurotic artists in musical history, he did more than any other single figure to pioneer the symphony, the piano sonata and the string quartet - and he was the first truly great practitioner of each.

Welcome to Kittur, India. Of its 193,432 residents, only 89 declare themselves to be without religion or caste. And if the characters in Between the Assassinations are any indication, Kittur is an extraordinary crossroads of the brightest minds and the poorest morals, the up-and-coming and the downtrodden, and of an India that modern literature has rarely addressed.

A grisly murder has plunged Bollywood, the film capital of India, into chaos. Ghote gets so caught up with giving an Academy Award-winning performance as a sleuth that the curtain almost comes down on his own life.

Sent to a remote part of India to find out who could benefit from Judge Asif's death, Ghote can get no cooperation from the judge until it becomes evident that the anonymous threats are coming from someone in the judge's household.

Inspector Ghote comes to London. The Indian police inspector is to attend an international conference on drug smuggling, and in cold, drizzling London he is faced with his first case outside India - and it's a very odd case.

Inspector Ghote embarks on one of his strangest cases when he is ordered to prevent a murder - the killing of a precious flamingo in the Bombay zoo. And then there is the racehorse fancied to win the local Derby, which gets replaced by a donkey... Ghote finds things going disastrously as bit by bit he unearths the traces of a monstrous practical joker. But then the fun stops - and Inspector Ghote has a more serious murder on his hands.

Searing. Explosive. Lyrical. Compassionate. Here is the astonishing new novel by the Man Booker Prize–winning author of The White Tiger, a book that took rage and anger at injustice and turned it into a thrilling murder story. Now, with the same fearlessness and insight, Aravind Adiga broadens...

A couple's tranquil life abroad is irrevocably transformed by the arrival of their son's widow and children, in the latest from Somalia's most celebrated novelist. For decades, Gacalo and Mugdi have lived in Oslo, where they've led a peaceful, largely assimilated life and raised two children...

What had until recently been a police sergeant is now lying at Ghote’s feet bleeding its last. An accident it may have been, but Ghote saw exactly what happened, and it’s his duty to arrest the killer. Isn’t it? Or can the inspector better serve his beloved police force by disposing of the body - by concealing a crime? And if he does, will he manage to keep his terrible secret?

Newly promoted Inspector Ghote is thrilled to be granted casual leave until he takes up his post, as it allows him to spend time with his heavily pregnant wife, who is desperate to watch a showing of Hamlet at the cinema. Their plans are ruined, however, since Sir Rustom Engineer requires Ghote to investigate the suicide of his friend's wife. Worried about his wife's imminent delivery, Ghote nevertheless travels to the home of Mr. Dawkins, where he is unconvinced by the story of Iris Dawkins' death.

Some crooks have tried to snatch the plump son of a business tycoon, and have accidentally made off with his playmate instead. But they're not changing their plan: a payment is to be delivered to them or a small corpse is to be delivered to Inspector Ghote. But what kind of ransom can a mere tailor's boy demand? And, as something more unpleasant than just a ransom note arrives from the kidnappers, are the police helping to keep the boy in one piece?

An American visitor to India is killed on the road from Bombay to Poona. Called in to investigate the murder, Inspector Ghote soon makes the acquaintance of the victim's brother, Professor Gregory Strongbow. But the professor is both stubborn and evasive, refusing to tell Ghote what he knows about the events leading up to Hector's death. Soon Ghote finds his own life in danger, as he is faced with a conspiracy that reaches to the very highest levels of Indian politics... This is the third book in the hugely popular 'Inspector Ghote' series from H.R.F. Keating.

A princely state in India, 1930, under the British raj. To Bhopore and its opulent Summer Palace comes a handful of Western visitors to meet the outrageous Maharajah and his entourage. There they meet the Maharajah's heir, the sensual Porgy, and his English chorus-girl mistress. They meet the enigmatic chief minister--and the aloof British resident, with his dignified little nine-year-old son. And before long they also meet sudden death....