Murder for Dessert?

fourth in a series of crime novels to feature Lalli,an unlikely woman detective in her 60s,as inscrutable as she is wise. Her skills with the Rampuri knife and formidable detection skills are the stuff of police chowki legend in Mumbai,but much of the action in the Lalli mysteries unfolds at the dinner table,over long conversations and good food,without lingering over the grisly details. She presides over a familiar circle of idiosyncratic aides — Sita,the narrator and her niece; Savio,the policeman and friend; Dr Q,the police surgeon secretly in love with gardens; and Inspector Shukla,the cynical,hard-nosed cop forever amused by trusting Sita. In the midst of slashed throats and bodies turning up,they gather in her Vile Parle home,the business of deconstructing death lightened by banter,biscuits and milk shakes.

Plotting is not the strength of the Lalli novels,and that is true of The Secret Gardener. If anything,too many strands get tangled. Why does Priya,the woman kidnapped from the house,suddenly become wary of her second husband? Why is her son,Jai,afraid of his mother being hurt again? The denouement,when it comes,in the manner of classic murder mysteries,with the dramatis personae all herded into one house,involves — a little improbably — cyanide-laced almond kheer,a letter of confession,and photographs taken secretly of the murderer dragging bodies to their graves. While Lalli begins by hunting the killers of Kesarbai,once her nemesis and friend,she ends up excavating a series of crimes in the past. The murders of the present get solved too though the cursory explanation,dismissed in two pages,does not convince.

What will stay with you are the cameos,drawn with devastating economy of description and dialogue — from Kesarbai whose presence fills the novel long after she is bumped off,to Jai,the child who cannot speak of the evil in his life. Swaminathan also conveys with great ease the rhythms of Mumbai’s smaller neighbourhoods.

There is also something to be said for disclosing the murderer over dessert. The zabaglione is a frothy custard served with slices of fruit. The delicate foam,says Lalli,obscured the substance underneath — like the case that befuddled her. But,we might be tempted to share Inspector Shukla’s scepticism about the Italian dessert,and apply it to the probability of Swaminathan’s plot: “Liquid bhi chalta hai,but this is total four twenty”.