Holmes of The Opera

The Great Hiatus of Holmes’ life has always been a source of endless speculation, and inspiration to authors. “The Canary Trainer ” by Nicholas Meyer (published as ‘a lost manuscript by John H. Watson, M.D.’) is third in the series of his books explaining the absence of Holmes from his homeland.

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A Case of Catatonic Cobras

If asked which one person we would have liked to see again, true Holmesians would vote for Irene Norton née Adler with a huge majority, if not by an unanimous vote. A Soul of Steel by Carole Nelson Douglas is a novel from her Irene Adler series which tries to fulfill that fantasy.

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It’s not what you think it is

We all know Isaac Asimov as the father of Three (sorry, Four) Laws of Robotics and the creator of the two Foundations, but he also created one of the most memorable groups of amateur detectives, The Black Widowers.

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The Lady of Shallot

The Mirror Crack’d is a classical representative of the stories where Miss Marple solves the cases (sometimes literally) from her armchair, just based on psychology of characters involved.

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Intrepid Lady Sleuth

No series on detectives will be complete without a review of lady detectives. Or at least, I thought so…
But, when I started searching for lady detectives in Indian fiction, I found a veritable dearth of them. Despite real life examples like Kiran Bedi and reel-life examples like “Udaan” (my recollections of which are very hazy, [...]

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Comical Detectives in India

(and I don’t mean comical as in funny)
Try as I may, I cannot find any detectives in Indian comics. I mean, some (all?) of the Feluda stories was made into comics, and Fa Fe found his way into animated format via Tinkle, while we have a plethora of crime-fighters. But there are no detectives solely [...]

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Fa Fe

Marathi has had its share of paperback detectives and kid detectives, but probably the most famous of all Marathi detectives is a kid, who goes by the name of “Faster Fene”. If English children had their “Secret Seven”s and “Famous Five”s (about whom we learnt later), more than one generation of Marathi kids had our [...]

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Jagrit, Suvyavasthit Sahayak Part II

Update: The Feluda mystery “The Mystery of the Elephant God” is currently playing on BBC 4 Saturday play this week.
Why do most of the mainstream detectives in India come from Bengal? This is one of the questions which needs a Byomkesh to solve. Because, second in my “detective” series is also a Bengali “Da” (Not [...]

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Jagrit, Suvyavasthit Sahayak Part I

A bomb is ticking away, and there is no chance that anybody can diffuse it in time. Two brave officers volunteer to take it out in a helicopter and let it blast over the sea, so that nobody will get hurt.

Now if you think I am talking about a Dan Brown novel, think again…

Oh well, [...]

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Baker Street Supernaturals

“I have hitherto confined my investigations to this world. In a modest way I have combated evil, but to take on the Father of Evil himself would, perhaps, be too ambitious a task.”
- Sherlock Holmes, in “The Hound of the Baskervilles”
In his career spanning many years, and at least 3 continents, Holmes combated evil in [...]

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