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I was recently successful in getting an ARC for the third book in this series. On investigating my Kindle book collection, I discovered I had the first and second already and decided I'd better read at least the first before taking on the third. Clearly, I'd been sufficiently intrigued by the premise of 'India's first woman detective' to buy them but not to actually get around to reading them.

Let me first address the elephant in the room: possible plagiarism.

Let me be nicer - I don't want to get sued for libel. Let's not call it plagiarism. Let's call it 'extreme coincidence'.

I'm referring to Sujata Massey's Perveen Mistry series of novels which were published a couple of years before Vaseem Khan's.

Perveen is 'India's first woman lawyer'. Persis Wadia is 'India's first woman detective'.
Perveen and Persis are both based in Bombay.
Both are Parsee women - a convenient way to explain away their willingness to be so unconventional it would seem; a part of local society but also apart from local society.
Both fight the sexism and prejudices of their colleagues.
Both are tenacious in their determination to find justice.
Both have unfortunate past love affairs.
The only key difference is that Perveen's stories predate Persis Wadia's by around 30 years.

I know that trends in writing are not unusual but the coincidences between these two series are more striking than most.

But................let's put that aside and get on with the book.

Pluses:
1. The setting, just after the end of Empire, is an interesting one, as is our dead victim.
There's still a great deal of festering resentment to unpack and examine. Most of the Brits have gone home but our dead man has been investigating crimes associated with Partition. Might he be a 'good egg' who really cares about India, or will Persis find he's rather more out for himself? He's murdered at his own New Year's Eve party, left without his trousers, with a slit throat and the burning embers of some hastily incinerated papers in his fireplace.

2. The exploration of not only Partition in 1947 but also unrest in the Punjab arising from the infamous Jallianwallahbagh Massacre back in 1919 is to be commended. There aren't enough books looking at those important events and the massacre and its impact on one of the characters is handled in a very interesting way. The sins of the father are still very much visited on the son. Khan also manages to squeeze in murderous behaviour in Burma during WW2. I applaud the history lessons that he offers.

3. After a very slow start, the book picks up pace in the second half and the plot thickens considerably. I was very close to spotting the killer but not quite there - right reasons, wrong person. I always appreciate a story that logically leads us to a rational conclusion

Cons:
1. Persis is not a convincing female protagonist. There's very little about her that suggests the author really has any idea how to write a female character. Aside from the odd bit of flirtation with her British side-kick, you could pretty much go through the book, switch the pronouns and replace her with a man. I didn't buy her as an authentic character at all.

2. The first half is a drag. It's a slow plod around Bombay as we're introduced to a wide cast of characters, none of whom really get going until over halfway through.

3. The tactic of "let's give the case to the least experienced detective who's sure to screw it up but then again, maybe not" is straight out of the book of classic procedural devices for Indian crime novels. It popped up a few days ago in the last book I read (The Waiter by Ajay Chowdhury) and it was so obvious as to be almost insulting.

In short, it's a mixed batch of a book. I will read the next two - possibly in the wrong order - and see if they develop further. I'd prefer my 'first woman detective' to be a bit more three dimensional. Let's see if she improves with familiarity.