The Bangalore Detectives Club is a wonderful debut mystery by Harini Nagendra. It takes place in Nagendra's home city of Bangalore, India, in 1921, when India was under colonial British rule and Gandhi's independence movement was emerging. The heroine is 19-year-old Kaveri Murthy, a strong-minded young woman with a passion for mathematics and detective novels. Her hero is Sherlock Holmes. Kaveri has been married for three years to Ramu, a doctor, but she has only recently come to live with her husband because, unusually for a woman of her background, she stayed behind in her home city of Mysore to finish her education. Her traditionally-minded mother-in-law, who, luckily for Kaveri, is absent during the events of this novel, does not understand why a woman should get an education. Ramu agrees with Kaveri that education is important, even though she's trying to figure out how to tell him she wants to go to a university to continue her study of mathematics.
Although this is an arranged marriage, Kaveri and Ramu have grown to love each other, and their relationship develops through the book, as Ramu learns how intelligent his wife is, and what she is capable of. Kaveri also discovers the extent to which her husband will support her. They were strangers when they married, but they have become a loving, supportive couple.
Ramu is employed by a British doctor in a hospital in Bangalore, and at the beginning of the novel he and Kaveri attend a party, along with the other doctors and their wives, at the Century Club, one of the few private clubs in Bangalore that admits both British and Indian members. As she steps away briefly from the party, Kaveri sees a confrontation in the garden between Manju, a cowherd who supplies Kaveri and Ramu with milk, and a beautiful, unknown woman. Later, this woman is attacked by a large, threatening man who turns out to be a pimp named Ponnuswamy, who supplies upper-class men with prostitutes, including Mala, the beautiful woman Kaveri saw in the garden. Then Ponnuswamy is found murdered. Manju is the prime suspect at first, especially when he disappears soon after the crime.
Kaveri learns that, shortly before the murder, Manju had been behaving strangely. He had started beating his pregnant wife and younger brother, when he had never been violent before. Then an attack on Manju's wife, Munniama, leaves her in a coma. The police suspect either her or her husband of committing the murder of Ponnuswamy. Eventually Munimma comes out of her coma, but she is unable to identify her attacker.
Kaveri is fascinated by the emerging methods of using fingerprints in crime-solving, and she convinces Inspector Ismail to examine the fingerprints left on the murder weapon. Unlike many police detectives, Ismail welcomes help from amateur detectives Kaveri and Ramu, and he examines the fingerprints, which clear Manju and Muniamma. But that leaves Mala, the prostitute, as the prime suspect. Kaveri is certain someone is trying to frame Mala, but without any evidence to the contrary, Ismail is forced to hold Mala in prison. Kaveri and Ramu work together to prove Mala's innocence before her trial begins, because they know that a vulnerable woman like Mala is likely to be convicted and executed.
The search for the murderer takes Kaveri into many different parts of Bangalore, including the cowherds' colony, an upper-class brothel, and a mansion belonging to Ramu's employer, the British doctor, and his snobbish wife. Kaveri rebels against the constraints on women of her place and time, and is willing to break caste in order to solve the crime. She is helped by an older woman, Uma, known as "Uma aunty," who is an absolute delight. They go places without the knowledge of Ramu or Uma's son, who is the head of her household, but of course Ramu finds out. He is not terribly upset about Kaveri visiting the cowherds, who were considered "untouchables" who no upper-class Indian woman should visit, but he is angry with her at first about her visit to the house of prostitution. When Kaveri tells him Mala's story, though, he understands. Mala was forced into prostitution by her brother in order to pay off his gambling debts, then, shortly before he died, he sold her to Ponnuswamy. As soon as he hears Mala's story, Ramu is just as eager as Kaveri to see her proven innocent.
Nagendra takes the reader to 1920s Bangalore, and you feel you are there with the characters. Learning about various aspects of the society is one of the great strengths of the novel. I loved Kaveri's character, as an independent-minded, intelligent woman, and I can't wait to read about her further adventures. There is not a lot about the political events of the time, but Kaveri is a strong supporter of Indian independence. Ramu privately agrees with her views, but, as an employee of the British government, he cannot openly support independence, or subscribe to a newspaper by the independence movement, but Kaveri can. It will be interesting to see how this conflict plays out later in the series.
As a new wife, Kaveri does not know much about cooking, but she is learning quickly, and the meals she makes sound delicious. Nagendra includes several mouthwatering-sounding recipes at the end of the book. They can be made together, to make a full-course Indian meal, or separately. I certainly felt hungry for Indian food after reading the book. The mystery itself is a compelling one. I thought I had figured out who the murderer was, but I was wrong, and I didn't guess who it was until the very end. I highly recommend this book. Fans of Sujata Massey and Nev March should love it. I am looking forward to many more adventures of Kaveri Murthy in the future.
The Bangalore Detectives Club is available from the Hatcher Graduate Library.