‘The Silversmith’s Puzzle’: An action-packed, colourful murder mystery set in 19th-century Bombay

Detectives come with many a quirk, but they invariably share something in common: they are all outsiders, marked by certain kinks and eccentricities. Holmes played his violin and “smoked recreationally”, among other things, whenever he put his mind to work. Poirot’s grey cells remain equally famous, as his fussiness about dressing and perfectionism for other sundry matters.

Miss Marple knitted and nothing that happened in the village St Mary Mead ever missed her eye; Inspector Morse loved the opera, Philip Marlowe remained perpetually taciturn and quite a loner, while Nero Wolfe, Rex Stout’s fictional armchair detective, grew orchids and was fond of his gourmet meals. And what of Captain Jim Agnihotri, soldier turned detective who has just made his fourth appearance in writer Nev March’s new detective novel, The Silversmith’s Puzzle, set in Bombay of 1894?

Jim Agnihotri is Anglo-Indian, born of an Indian mother, and left orphaned quite young. He has never quite fit in but his in-between status and good, undefinable looks give him the flexibility to slide into any situation, sometimes in disguise, in a manner like his idol, Sherlock Holmes.

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As Jim and his wife, Diana (née Framji), embark on their newest adventure, Conan Doyle’s The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1893–1894) has just been...

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