Thrilling turns | Review of Krishnan Srinivasan’s Kolkata Crimes

Explore Krishnan Srinivasan’s Kolkata Crimes, a captivating blend of mystery, culture, and intellect set in Bengal.

Old soldiers never die; they fade away. But what about ageing diplomats? They are often seen playing golf or pontificating on international affairs on prime-time television. In this instance, however, Krishnan Srinivasan, an astute diplomat and a former foreign secretary, has excelled himself by producing a series of crime fiction works, culminating in his latest, Kolkata Crimes. Earlier, he wrote several books on world affairs and a total of eight detective stories. 

Having read a few of his recent works, I find that two features stand out. First, each story revolves around Detective Koel Deb, a 30-something disabled former police officer, who solves murder mysteries with the help of retired Somali Ambassador Michael Marco. Second, every episode is set in or around Kolkata, offering an insider’s view of life, times, and society in Bengal. That this comes from someone who is not a Bengali but is adequately fluent in the language is an impressive feat. Added to this is another consistent quality: the stories hold the reader’s attention till the very end.

Kolkata Crimes is a collection of six short stories and one novella, The Unravelling. In a book of 288 pages, the novella occupies 123 pages. Both genres show the author’s exceptional skills in imagination, logic, deduction, characterisation, and in creating a cycle of interesting incidents that reflect human nature with all its foibles, failings, and strengths.

The short stories serve as an effective appetiser, presenting varied plots and intriguing characters, sustaining suspense before offering logical resolutions to crimes, mostly murders. The novella, however, is the core of the book, allowing the author to display his full range as a storyteller. While this reviewer was thoroughly hooked, the explanation for the extreme mutilation of the victim — the young foreign woman Yulia, adopted daughter of renowned Swiss academic Dr. Hans Hartman — was not entirely convincing in terms of motivation. Why the author had to present such gory details, which naturally provoke revulsion, remains unclear and unexplained.

The chemistry between Koel Deb and Michael Marco is another distinctive feature of the series. Whether they are merely friends, a mentor–mentee pair, or a couple with a hint of romance is left deliberately ambiguous and to the reader’s imagination.

This crime novel also appeals to readers with intellectual inclinations. Ambassador Marco and, occasionally, Detective Deb quote ancient sources with telling effect. At one point, Marco quotes Enheduanna, the world’s oldest poet, saying, “She does not reveal what shines within her,” and elsewhere cites Aristotle’s view that every tragedy moves from complication to unravelling, while a Chinese proverb — “As the water recedes, the rocks appear” — leads to Koel’s wry response: “The Chinese seem to have a saying for everything,” a line that will resonate with many readers.