SIMHA SAGAR

Wand Noodles, Thrillers Spies.

is an independent creative consultant. He lives in Mumbai.

hen I was asked to recommend the best books I had read this year, I thought of MG Parameswaran’s

KV Sridhar’s

(both wonderful books on Indian advertising), Anita Nair’s excellent and John le Carre’s masterful

I finally settled on by Jerry Pinto because it belongs to my favourite genre and it is set in Mumbai, my favourite city. It is an excellent read. Murder in Mahim is almost exclusively about the city’s gay underworld scene; the main protagonist is a retired journalist; it is devoid of sensationalism; there is no femme fatale; it does not have a denouement where the murderer is revealed with a grand flourish of ratiocination. Yet the book is a page-turner primarily because the author draws you into a sordid Mumbai that lurks beneath the

Nawabs, Nudes 30 Second

Chain of Custody A Legacy of Murder in Mahim

one with which we are familiar -- a world of ageing queens, male prostitutes and corrupt cops. Pinto is a great guide to this alternate city. He is aware of the streets, the grimy railway stations and all their smells. He also knows how Mumbaikars talk. He has an excellent ear for the patois. In fact, it is the conversations that set the book apart. They are matter-of-fact, gritty and real. One suspects that the plot - that revolves around a male sex worker found murdered in a railway station toilet - is just an excuse for the author to take us on a tour of a Mumbai we barely know. While this book does thrill the voyeur in the reader, it is also a decent murder mystery but one where the twists come at a measured pace. Most of the violence happens backstage and the mystery solves itself with a little help from the characters. The book succeeds not just because it is a well plotted whodunit but also because it is a non-judgmental tale of characters rarely cast in Mumbai’s hoary narratives. Jerry Pinto has written one of the better Indian crime fiction books.