H.R.F. Keating Books In Order

Inspector Ghote Books In Publication Order

  1. The Perfect Murder (1964)
  2. Inspector Ghote’s Good Crusade (1966)
  3. Inspector Ghote Caught in Meshes (1967)
  4. Inspector Ghote Hunts the Peacock (1968)
  5. Inspector Ghote Plays a Joker (1969)
  6. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg (1970)
  7. Inspector Ghote Goes By Train (1971)
  8. Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart (1972)
  9. Bats Fly Up for Inspector Ghote (1974)
  10. Filmi, Filmi, Inspector Ghote (1976)
  11. Inspector Ghote Draws a Line (1979)
  12. The Murder of the Maharajah (1980)
  13. Go West, Inspector Ghote (1981)
  14. The Sheriff of Bombay (1984)
  15. Under a Monsoon Cloud (1986)
  16. The Body in the Billiard Room (1987)
  17. Dead on Time (1988)
  18. Inspector Ghote, His Life and Crimes (1989)
  19. The Iciest Sin (1990)
  20. Cheating Death (1992)
  21. Doing Wrong (1993)
  22. Asking Questions (1996)
  23. Bribery, Corruption Also (1999)
  24. Breaking and Entering (2000)
  25. Inspector Ghote’s First Case (2008)
  26. A Small Case for Inspector Ghote? (2009)

Harriet Martens Books In Publication Order

  1. The Hard Detective (2000)
  2. A Detective in Love (2001)
  3. A Detective Under Fire (2002)
  4. The Dreaming Detective (2003)
  5. A Detective at Death’s Door (2004)
  6. One Man and His Bomb (2006)
  7. Rules, Regs and Rotten Eggs (2007)

Harriet Unwin Mystery Books In Publication Order

  1. The Governess (1983)
  2. The Man of Gold (1985)
  3. Into the Valley of Death (1986)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Death and the Visiting Firemen (1959)
  2. Zen There Was Murder (1960)
  3. A Rush on the Ultimate (1961)
  4. The Dog It Was That Died (1962)
  5. Death of a Fat God (1963)
  6. Is Skin Deep, Is Fatal (1965)
  7. The Strong Man (1971)
  8. The Underside (1974)
  9. Murder Must Appetize (1975)
  10. A Remarkable Case of Burglary (1975)
  11. Murder by Death (1976)
  12. A Long Walk to Wimbledon (1978)
  13. Mrs. Craggs: Crimes Cleaned Up (1985)
  14. The Rich Detective (1993)
  15. The Good Detective (1995)
  16. The Soft Detective (1998)
  17. The Bad Detective (1999)
  18. Jack, the Lady Killer (1999)

Short Story Collections In Publication Order

  1. In Kensington Gardens Once… (1997)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. Blood on My Mind (1972)
  2. Sherlock Holmes (1979)
  3. Whodunit?: A Guide To Crime, Suspense and Spy Fiction (1982)
  4. Writing Crime Fiction (1986)
  5. Crime and Mystery (1987)
  6. Great Crimes (1991)
  7. The Bedside Companion to Crime (1997)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. Agatha Christie (1977)
  2. Chilling and Killing (1978)
  3. Crime Waves 1 (1978)
  4. 1st Culprit (1992)
  5. 3rd Culprit (1994)
  6. The Crown Crime Companion (1995)
  7. Win, Lose or Die (1996)
  8. Criminal Records (2000)

Inspector Ghote Book Covers

Harriet Martens Book Covers

Harriet Unwin Mystery Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Short Story Collections Book Covers

Non-Fiction Book Covers

Anthologies Book Covers

H.R.F. Keating Books Overview

The Perfect Murder

Inspector Ghote’s first cases for the Bombay Police Department include a seemingly unsolvable murder and the theft of one rupee from the desk of the Minister of Police Affairs and the Arts. 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 one 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 struggles through the quagmires of incompetence and corruption to solve these curious crimes. The Perfect Murder won an Edgar Special Award from the Mystery Writers of America as well as the Crime Writers Association Golden Dagger Award and was made into a film by Merchant Ivory.

Inspector Ghote Hunts the Peacock

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. It’s a very odd case. The girl, Ranee, niece of relatives of Ghote who live in London, has vanished kidnapped, murdered, so her relatives allege, by a notorious pop singer. And Ghote is hounded by the relatives in trying to find Ranee known for her brilliance as The Peacock.

Inspector Ghote Plays a Joker

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.

Inspector Ghote Goes By Train

The assignment was routine: to bring a notorious confidence man, arrested in Calcutta, back to Bombay for trial. But Inspector Ghote devised a plan to make it almost a holiday to relax on the Calcutta Mail as it surged across the breadth of the Indian subcontinent. But Ghote’s fellow passengers soon prove anything but restful…

Bats Fly Up for Inspector Ghote

Inspector Ghote has been transferred to the BATS the Black money and Allied Transactions Squad. The BATS officers should be working to arrest pickpockets and sneak thieves, but Ghote’s tough mission is to root out corruption in his new fellow officers, as it seems that someone has been leaking information so that police operations fail. On this patch of coastal India, in a world of underground finance, stolen money can lead to a whole host of black market transactions, including gold smuggling operations. In the course of his duties, Ghote acquires a torturing overwhelming suspicion of everyone and everything, and he resolves to resign from the Bombay Police Department amid protestations from his wife…

Cheating Death

Investigating an apparent open and shut case on Kanpur campus at Bombay University, where students were able to purchase exam scores and degrees, Inspector Ghote encounters a bigger web of deceit than he anticipated.National

Asking Questions

At the Mira Behn Institute for Medical Research someone is smuggling out a dangerous drug, made from the venom of poisonous snakes. Inspector Ghote’s suspect is the snake handler Chandra Chagoo, but Chagoo’s now lying dead on the floor of the Reptile Room, a viper slithering across his back.

Bribery, Corruption Also

Inspector Ghote’s wife has just inherited a big house and is determined that they both move from Bombay to Calcutta. But when the couple arrive to view the property, they find it in a state of terrible disrepair and inhabited by squatters. Ghote detects a whiff of corruption which he discovers extends all the way up the political ladder.

Breaking and Entering

All Bombay is buzzing with news of the murder of Anil Ajmani. It is certainly a baffling case, for the millionaire was found stabbed to death in his heavily guarded and tightly secured mansion. Every inspector in the Crime Branch hopes to be the one to nail the killer and that includes Inspector Ganesh Ghote. Unfortunately, he is not assigned to the case. Instead, he has been given the less glorious task of tracking down a cat burglar, nicknamed Yeshwant, who has been scaling apartment buildings in the dead of night to steal valuable pieces of jewelry. Aided or perhaps hampered by his old friend Axel Svensson, seeking Indian warmth from his troubles in winter cold Sweden, Ghote fights to uncover Yeshwant’s true identity. And in so doing, unexpectedly finds that he may be the one to solve the murder of Anil Ajmani after all.

Inspector Ghote’s First Case

From Gold and Cartier Diamond Dagger Winner H. R. F. Keating, the long awaited prequel to the acclaimed series Newly promoted Inspector Ghote of the Bombay Police 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, when Sir Rustom Engineer asks 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 s death. Especially when he recognizes the officer in charge, Darrani, who is well known for his closed mindedness. Ghote investigates further, with a Hamlet esque awareness of how deceiving appearances can really be. The New York Times called Inspector Ghote one of the great characters of the contemporary mystery novel and H. R. F. Keating returns to his well liked Indian detective with much energy and vision.

A Small Case for Inspector Ghote?

In his proud new position in the prestigious Bombay Police Crime Branch Inspector Ganesh Ghote sees his career finally take off with the prospect of only the most high profile murders to investigate. Unfortunately the Assistant Commissioner of Police Mr. Ramprasade Divekar has other ideas and chooses to keep Ghote busy with the interminable paperwork of Bandobast Duty. Waiting to be given his first case, Ghote doesn’t expect to find it planted in his waste bin. Wrapped in newspaper, which features the face of a prominent politician and stuffed into an old shopping bag, there is stark evidence of a murder fitted to his capabilities. But ACP Divekar dismisses the murder as plainly altogether unsuitable for a Crime Branch investigation, ordering Ghote to dispose of such evidence. Feeling that no murder should go overlooked, Ghote makes a promise to himself, and later to his steadfast wife, Protima, to investigate on his own, possibly risking his entire police career. His enquiries take him all over sprawling Bombay as he hunts for a man who has stolen just such an old shopping bag. But then he is suddenly given that longed for case, the murder of a young university researcher already inefficiently investigated by the local police. It may be only a small case, but can Ghote solve it and keep as well the promise he has made to himself?

The Hard Detective

Harriet Martens is a tough cop, but she must now muster all her strength to prevent a serial killer completing a gruesome plan of revenge. Detective Chief Inspector, Harriet Martens has earned the nickname The Hard Detective but she’s had to be unyielding to make it in a man’s world. It was, after all, this toughness that inspired her successful Stop the Rot campaign, that has so provoked local criminals. But now, two of her officers have died within hours of each other. Harriet comes to believe both have been murdered and a disturbing idea follows. For the circumstances of each death echo words from the ‘Book of Exodus’: Life for Life, Eye for Eye…
Has a killer chosen this gruesome ritual to tell Harriet she has been pushing too hard? And if so, can she prevent the six deaths that will surely complete the quotation? Beginning with Tooth for tooth…
Also in this series are: ‘The Rich Detective’, ‘The Good Detective’, ‘The Bad Detective’ and ‘The Soft Detective’. ‘One of his best…
It really is a top notch story.’ ‘Birmingham Post’. ‘Few who pick up this latest offering from a master will be disappointed by the superior fare on offer here.’ ‘Crime Time’.

A Detective in Love

In that mythical Victorian piano legs in pantaloons era people, at least in the respectable clas*ses, may have convinced themselves that sex was something that manifested itself only when a baby had to be made. But in fact it’s us, the sophisticated, we know it all generation, who still don’t really acknowledge how we’re all in a every way all the time at the mercy of that louring cloud. Detective Harriet Martens the title character from The Hard Detective returns in this newest police procedural from a master of the genre, H. R. F. Keating. Detective Martens has a well deserved reputation for unyielding toughness. In The Hard Detective, she led a Stop the Rot campaign against local crime and faced down a brutal killer on a spree of cop killing. Now, she has been called on to lead the investigation into the murder of Bubbles Xingara, Britain’s number one tennis star and media darling, who was found dead on the grounds of her sprawling country home. The case is sure to draw worldwide attention. The mystery, however, isn’t what tests the Hard Detective’s strength. It’s the fact that Detective Martens, devoted wife, has fallen madly and passionately in love with a subordinate officer. From her first meeting with that subordinate, Martens must struggle not only to solve a perplexing homicide, but also to control her increasing urges and to withstand temptation. Her difficulties are made no easier by her husband regularly commenting on the unavoidable power of ‘amorousness.’

The Dreaming Detective

‘Who killed the preacher?’ Harriet Martens is taken aback. This is her first face to face meeting with the new Chief Constable, and he shot the question at her the moment she took the seat in front of his desk. Why is he setting out to antagonize her? He must be talking about the famous Boy Preacher, who was murdered there thirty or more years ago. ‘He’s bringing it up now because the old hotel that was the scene of the crime is about to be torn down.’ And he is giving Harriet the mystery to solve because he wants her out. The media has made much of how young he is, he has to establish himself and he doesn’t want a much publicized female detective to steal any glory from him. The preacher’s murder has been unsolvable for more than thirty years; Harriet’s inevitable failure to solve it now will take care of her…
. Harriet was still at school when the murder happened. As she remembers, there were six or seven people, avid disciples, in a position to have killed the wildly popular young figure. But no one had ever been able to point out the killer or killers from that list. How in the world could she do it now? DNA, the chief told her. Find out whose DNA was on the boy’s body, and get the confession out of him. Oh, certainly, easy as pie. But Harriet has more than earned her title of The Hard Detective. She is determined to turn the tables on the chief, so determined that the case takes over her dreams. And it is, indeed, a dream that pries open the door leading her to the answer. She will certainly have her readers cheering her on and rejoicing with her when she manages to get her own back. Keating’s delicious detective, now happily married and well set in her job, will delight her many fans and bring many more.

A Detective at Death’s Door

If Detective Harriet Martens’s husband John hadn’t been reading an Agatha Christie classic while the detective herself was sunning by the side of the club pool, she would have been dead before this story began. Unbeknownst to either of them, a killer had dropped a highly lethal addition into Harriet’s cold drink. Struck by surprise to see the very symptoms of poisoning he’d been reading about, John was able to act immediately! Although he acted in time to save Harriet’s life, she did not escape from the poisoning unscathed. She was bed ridden for much too long a time before she was well enough to join in the search for her would be murderer. But being imprisoned in bed gives one plenty of time to think, and Harriet soon realized that the attempt on her life was the initial move by an unknown who would soon earn the title of ‘serial killer.’ Even after there had been more murders, Harriet found it hard to convince her colleagues of this. They argued that the victims were too unrelated to each other; they did not know one another, had very different occupations, were widely apart socially and economically, and lived in neighborhoods scattered about the environs of the town. Except for the fact that they were English citizens, they had nothing in common. Or correction! They had nothing in common that Harriet’s fellow police officers could see. But no one can say that Harriet is not tenacious. Once she is able to go about in person, if a bit shakily, she comes up with some helpful ideas. All the while, in the back of her mind, she knows that the killer, ego bruised, must be aching to finish what he or she started.

Rules, Regs and Rotten Eggs

Detective Superintendent Harriet Martens resolves to resign after the new Assistant Chief Constable at the head of the CID makes her feel inferior in her job. However, her thoughts of resignation are abruptly interrupted when the pro hunting politician Robert Roughouse suspiciously collapses during one of his vehement speeches at an antihunting demonstration. Sensing that someone has deliberately attempted to murder Roughouse, and seeing an opportunity to prove her worth to the ACC, Detective Martens determinately takes charge of the investigation.

Immersed in thoughts about what could possibly lie behind the attempt at assassination, Detective Martens decides to interview Roughouse in the hospital. However, rather than aiding in her enquiry, her visit serves only to confuse things further: Roughouse has been moved during the night to the privately owned Masterton Clinic, and is not accepting visitors. What could lie behind the strange series of events surrounding the Roughouse case?

The talented H. R. F. Keating is at the top of his game in this latest stunning British police procedural.

A Long Walk to Wimbledon

For London 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 side of the dangerous bowl of the devastated city. Reluctant almost to sticking point, he sets out to go to her. His journey is a story of adventure through the ruins. His immediate business is the simple one of pressing on through all the debris, always driven because he knows that Jasmine will die soon. He may never get there: he may be killed by idiotic accident, torn to pieces by the packs of wild dogs, trapped in one of the communes that within their stockades have established their own ruthlessly puritanical disciplines. But the difficulties and the dangers teach him lessons as he struggles onwards. He learns from the past. If it was drink, drugs and the dolce vita that had done for his wife, had not something similar destroyed the city too? He learns about the present amid its hazards. And he learns, as he comes at last to the bleak end of his long walk, lessons for a just possible future.

The Good Detective

A case from his past is about to ruin Assistant Chief Constable Ned French’s career. Heather Jonas, forced into a false confession to murder after a harrowing late night interview session with French, has now served fifteen years of her twenty year sentence. In all that time she’s never appealed against her lot; but now the situation has changed. Someone else has confessed, and there’s a citizen’s rights campaigner on Heather’s case who is determined to get to the truth. Then, French gets a tip off which could lead to the biggest coup of his working life. He is reliably informed that the notorious Corrigan cousins are masterminding a huge shipment of cocaine into Britain, and he knows where it’s going to land. Will he be able to pull off the arrest, or will the events from his past overwhelm him before he has the chance? And is he, or is he not, a good detective?

The Soft Detective

Detective Chief Inspector Phil Benholme has a reputation for being a little soft but it’s only because he tries to see both sides of every story. And now he is faced with the murder of Professor Unwala, winner of the 1945 Nobel Prize. Was the elderly man a victim of robbery? Or of a racist assault? Or did he know something about a collection of Celtic coins thought to be buried nearby? Benholme has a number of leads but they all point to his son. What does a ‘soft’ cop do when his teenage son becomes the prime suspect in murder?

The Bad Detective

For years Detective Sergeant Jack Stallworthy has taken advantage of the extra perks available to him. He’s worked hard; he’s put away the criminals. He just wants to please his wife Lily who dreams of retiring on Ko Samui, an island paradise. Jack is offered a deal he finds hard to refuse: first class living in Ko Samui in exchange for just one file at police headquarters. As Jack tries to finish the deal, he falls deeper and deeper into crime. And soon there’s no turning back…

Jack, the Lady Killer

The Punjab in India. 1935. The sub continent under the Raj. Fresh from his English boarding school, Jack Steele is a new recruit to the Indian Imperial Police and soon begins to acquire the attitudes of old India hands towards the people under their rule. Only a few months into his posting, Jack has to conduct a murder investigation when one of the British community at his Station, the sexually rapacious widow Milly Marchbanks, is found strangled. To Jack’s consternation, the only clue implicates a member of the Briton’s Club. But which one? While Jack goes round and round in circles, his self effacing Indian sergeant, Bulaki Ram, discreetly nudges him along the way he needs to go.H. R. F. Keating is best known for his long series of Inspector Ghote mysteries set in India, but Jack, the Lady Killer is something completely different as well as completely unexpected. It is one of the rarest forms known to literature, a detective novel in verse. Inspired by Vikram Seth’s brilliantly successful revival of the verse novel in The Golden Gate, Keating develops his rhyme crime in nearly 300 fourteen line stanzas. During a writing career spanning forty years, Keating has won many honours, most notably the award of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger in 1996 for a lifetime’s achievement. Since 1985 he has been President of the Detection Club in succession to some of the greats of British crime fiction, G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie and Julian Symons.

In Kensington Gardens Once…

H. R. F. Keating, the famed creator of Bombay’s Inspector Ganesh Ghote, leaves India for a series of evocative stories set in Kensington Gardens, which will delight all lovers of London. Each of the ten stories is set around one of the monuments and locations in London’s great park the Peter Pan statue, the Albert Memorial, statues of Queen Victoria and of the explorer, John Hammond Speke, the Round Pond, and so on. Three of the stories were written especially for this book.

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock HolmesThe Complete Novels and StoriesVolume IISince his first appearance in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle s Sherlock Holmes has been one of the most beloved fictional characters ever created. Now, in two paperback volumes, Bantam presents all fifty six short stories and four novels featuring Conan Doyle s classic hero a truly complete collection of Sherlock Holmes s adventures in crime!Volume II begins with The Hound of the Baskervilles, a haunting novel of murder on eerie Grimpen Moor, which has rightly earned its reputation as the finest murder mystery ever written. The Valley of Fear matches Holmes against his archenemy, the master of imaginative crime, Professor Moriarty. In addition, the loyal Dr. Watson has faithfully recorded Holmes s feats of extraordinary detection in such famous cases as the thrilling The Adventure of the Red Circle and the twelve baffling adventures from The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle s incomparable tales bring to life a Victorian England of horse drawn cabs, fogs, and the famous lodgings at 221B Baker Street, where for more than forty years Sherlock Holmes earned his undisputed reputation as the greatest fictional detective of all time.

Writing Crime Fiction

This guide to Writing Crime Fiction is based on the author’s analysis of the craft from the classic detective story of the 1920s and 30s up to the female private eye novels of the 1990s. It features tips on fictional structure, the plot and its characters, and on submitting a script to publishers.

Crime and Mystery

H.R.F Keating, author of The Perfect Murder and mystery reviewer for teh Times of London, offers a concise commentary on the finest mystery books ever written. From Poe’s tales of mystery and imagination to P.D. James’s A Taste for Death, Keating delivers a highly readable evaluation of the 100 authors and their masterpieces. This collection is a must for all devoted mystery readers. ‘Something to offer almost everyone. If you are only just embarking on a life of crime fiction…
a reliable guide.’ The New York Times ‘Remarkably balanced and highly entertaining.’ Library Journal ‘Keating, himself a mystery writer of note, has compiled a truly standout survey…
This is a gold mine of lively writing, sensible insights and easy going erudition.’ The Philadelphia Inquirer ‘Ideal browsing fare.’ Booklist

Crime Waves 1

The Crime Writers’ Association’s 1991 short story collection of macabre, funny, bloodcurdling, tongue in cheek, historical and clever tales. Contributors include Robert Barnard, Simon Brett, Antonia Fraser, Reginald Hill, Peter Lovesey, Julian Symons and Margaret Yorke.

The Crown Crime Companion

The Crown Crime CompanionThe Top 100 Mystery Novels Of All TimeSelected by theMystery Writers Of AmericaAnnotated by 0tto Penzler and Compiled by Mickey FriedmanFor The Crown Crime Companion, the Mystery Writers of America have compiled a list of the best 100 mystery novels of all time, as well as a list of favorites in ten categories. Fully annotated and reviewed by Otto Penzler, this list of the top 100 mysteries will be a valuable resource to fans, introducing them to new novels and reminding them about books by favorite writers they may have missed. Each of the ten category lists is introduced by a master of that category:Classics:Suspense:Hardboiled/Private Eye:Police Procedural:Espionage/Thriller:Criminal:Cozy/Traditional:Historical:Humorous:Legal/Courtroom:H.R.F. KeatingMary Higgins ClarkSue GraftonJoseph WambaughJohn GardnerRichard CondonMargaret MaronPeter LoveseyGregory McdonaldScott Turow

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