BBC Radio adaptations of two historical crime novels by H. R. F. Keating, plus bonus extract from BookshelfBritish 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, plu...

In a country mansion converted to adult educational courses, Mr Utamaro is lecturing on Zen Buddhism to a small and not entirely appreciative audience. But Zen questions and their seemingly quirkish answers predominate, until they are superseded by two of greater urgency: 'Who stole the wakizashi?' and 'Who killed Flaveen Mills?'H. R. F. Keating provides the solution in the same brilliantly humorous vein which won him so many admirers with his first novel, Death and the Visitin...

In the princely state of Bhopore, India, 1930, a handful of Western visitors comes to the opulent Summer Palace 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.Various people in the palace become suspects, and an imperturbabl...

It is Inspector Ghote's bad luck to be landed with the case of the perfect murder at the start of his career with the Bombay Police. As if it were not enough to have to contend with the cunning and important tycoon Lala Varde, Ghote finds himself investigating a mysterious theft of a single rupee from the desk of yet another very important person, the Minister of Police Affairs and the Arts. "If people would only behave in a simple, reasonable, logical way," sighs the Inspector, as he stru...

A delegation of visiting firemen arrives at Southampton, greeted by a stagecoach which carries a reception committee in early 19th century costume. This Old English greeting has been arranged between their president, Foster P. Schelemberger, and George Hamyadis, the flamboyant travel agent who is handling all the details of their visit to Britain.During an overnight stop in Winchester, Hamyadis reveals his plan for a little surprise to entertain the delegates during the journey to ...

First published in 1978, this is a London where the worst has happened. There have been riots, huge uncontrolled fires, outbreaks of savage looting, artillery battles, mass flights. The great city lies three parts deserted, open to marauding gangs and beast-wild individuals, its highways and landmarks tumbled like ruined temples.To Mark, comparatively safe up in less troubled Highgate, there comes a message that his estranged wife is dying over in Wimbledon, right across on the far...

In the dark world where predatory young beauty queens compete fiercely for money, a murder is committed. Police Constable Peter Lassington is soon enmeshed in a complicated mystery made more than usually exotic by the flesh that is continuously on show at the Star Bowl ballroom. Lassington's superior, Superintendent Ironside, is polite, sophisticated, devious but also distracted by his imminent retirement.This detective novel is carefully plotted and firmly set in a world of bizarr...

A monograph of Golden Age detective fiction from H.R.F. Keating, doyen of classic detective writers.Murder Must Appetize is an affectionate return to the halcyon days of the detective story when Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey were young and a touch of arsenic was still the ultimate deterrent. Apart from old friends like Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, we meet the less well remembered pioneers of detective fiction, including E.C.R. Lorac (alias for Edith Caroli...

DCI Phil Benholme has the reputation for being soft because he tries to see both sides of every story.When Professor Unwala, Nobel Prize winner of 1945, is found dead, Benholme must find the right questions to ask. Was it a tragic accident? Was he a victim of a violent burglary? Or of a racist assault by Britforce troopers? Or did he know something about the collection of Celtic coins thought to be buried nearby?When all leads point to a member of his own family, what will ...

A clever magician tries to solve the case of a locked-room murder that only a talented escape artist could have committed.Freelance scribe Ross Harte is working on an essay about the sad state of the modern mystery novel when a scream comes from the hallway: "There is death in that room!" Harte finds a trio of conjurers trying to get into the apartment of his neighbor, the mysterious Dr. Cesare Sabbat, famed occultist and, for the past few minutes, a corpse.

A chilling murder. A whispering past. A detective with everything to lose. When a man is found shot dead outside a quaint English cottage, the seemingly peaceful countryside erupts into scandal. The victim was charming, cruel—and deeply hated. Everyone had a motive. But only one pulled the trigger. Enter Detective W.T. Challoner, a man as brilliant as he is intuitive. As he peels back layers of family secrets, forbidden desires, and long-held grudges, he realizes the truth may be more sini...

This dazzling off-beat thriller is H.R.F Keating's fourth novel, published in 1962.Why is Roger Farrar, if that indeed was his name, on the run in Dublin? Is he a traitor and deserted? The innocent target of a kidnap plot? Or a lonely persecuted paranoiac? A classic tale edged with doubt and menace.