Body in the Billiard Room, The

Inspector Ghote, 'one of the great creations of detective fiction' (Alexander McCall Smith), reluctantly becomes India's answer to Hercule Poirot when he's summoned to solve a mysterious murder worthy of Agatha Christie herself in this classic mystery - with a brand-new introduction by bestselling author Vaseem Khan. Inspector Ganesh Ghote of the Bombay CID is flattered when he's expressly summoned by a former ambassador, Surinder Mehta, to investigate a mysterious murder in the faraway hill station of Ootacamund. A body has been found on the billiard table at the genteel Ooty Club, a gathering place for well-to-do Indians and Englishmen – and the influential Mehta believes that only Ghote will be able to solve the crime. On arrival, Ghote discovers, to his dismay, that Mehta, an aging crime buff steeped in classic British mysteries, believes him to be a Great Detective, with powers of deduction second only to Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot. Ghote, trapped unwillingly in a second-rate detective story, decides that the only way to end this charade is to solve the case. But as he interrogates the motley group of suspects, his unreliable Watson spouting increasingly wild pet theories, he begins to despair of ever discovering the truth . . .