skygiants | (no subject)

While on the topic of Genre Mystery I also want to write up Nev Marsh's Murder in Old Bombay, a book marketed and titled as mystery-qua-mystery that I do not think really succeeds as either a mystery or a romance. However! It absolutely nails it as a kind of genre that we don't have as much anymore as a genre but that I really unironically love: picaresque adventure through a richly-realized historical milieu in which our protagonist happens by chance to stumble into, across, around, and through various significant events.

(I said this to

genarti, and she said, 'that kind of book absolutely does still exist,' and okay, true, yes, it does, but it doesn't exist as Genre! it gets published as Literary Fiction and does not proliferate in mass-market paperback and mass-market paperback is where I want to be looking for it.)

Murder in Old Bombay is set in 1892 and focuses on Number One Sherlock Holmes Fan Captain Jim Agnihotri, an Anglo-Indian Orphan of Mysterious Parentage who while convalescing in hospital becomes obsessed with the unsolved murders of two local Parsi women -- a new bride and her teenaged sister-in-law -- who fell dramatically out of a clock tower to their deaths.

Having left the British Army, and finding himself somewhat at loose ends, Captain Jim goes to write an article about the murder and soon finds himself engaged as private detective to the grieving family. In the course of trying to solve the mystery, he falls in love with the whole family -- including and especially but not exclusively the Spirited Young Socialite Daughter -- and also wanders all around India bumping into various Battles, Political Intrigues and High-Tension Situations.

Why do I say the mystery does not work? Well, this is the author's first book, and you can sort of tell in the way the actual clues to the mystery become assembled: a lot of, 'oh, I picked up this piece of paper! conveniently it tells me exactly what I need to know!' and 'I went to the this location and the first person I saw happened to be the person I was looking for, and we fell immediately into conversation and he told me everything!' You know, you can see the strings.

Why do I say the romance does not work? Well, it's the most by-the-numbers relationship in the book ... Diana has exactly all the virtues that you'd expect of a Spirited Young Parsi Socialite from 1892 written in 2020, and lacks all of the vices that you'd expect likewise. Jim thinks she's the bees' knees, but alas! he is a poor army captain of mysterious parentage and class and community divide them. Every time they even come close to actually talking about their different beliefs and prejudices the book immediately pulls back and goes Look! she's so Spirited! It's fine.

However, the portrait of place and time is so rich and fun -- Nev Marsh talks a bit in the afterword about how much the central family and community in question draws on her own family history, and she is clearly having a wonderful time doing it. The setting feels confident in a way that plot doesn't quite, and the setting is unusual and interesting enough to find in an English-language mystery that this goes a long way for me. And, structurally, although the twists involving the Mystery were rarely satisfying to me, I loved it every time historical events came crashing into the plot and forced Captain Jim to stop worrying about the mystery for a few chapters and have some Historical Adventure instead. My favorite portion of the book is the middle part, which he spends collecting a small orphanage's worth of lost children and then is so sad when it turns out most of them do have living parents and he has to give them back. I'm also sad that you had to give the orphans back, Captain Jim.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

osprey_archer

This sounds delightful actually! I love it when a mystery is an excuse for the main character to wander through an interesting setting and meet interesting people and maybe have some run-ins with History, even though it is of course preferable when the strings of the mystery itself are not quite so visible.

From:

skygiants

Yeah! There's a part of me that wishes that we could have more of this sort of book without having to provide the Mystery as an Excuse -- it is fun for me to see the shapes of other sorts of plots -- but also it's not at all a bad excuse, and, as we've been talking about, provides useful opportunities to explore Personalities and Contexts in illuminative ways.

From:

lirazel

As always, thank you for the review! This sounds like something I would enjoy very much but it's good to go in knowing that the mystery and romance parts aren't its strengths. Fortunately, I am always here for richly-realized historical milieu!!!

From:

skygiants

Same, as you know! I love: settings. I love settings especially when they have not already calcified into their own little mini-genre so people can just write the tropes without needing to write the setting (yes, I'm subtweeting the Regency, no shade to the Regency but some shade to the Regency.)

From:

lirazel

Gosh yes!!! Agreed so hard with this entire comment!

From:

troisoiseaux

Adding this to my list!

From:

skygiants

Hope you enjoy it if you read it!

From:

oracne

This sounds like so much fun, despite the minor flaws!

From:

skygiants

I wanted sometimes to fight with it but overall had a very good time with it!

From:

chestnut_pod

It sounds like some of the orphans can remain with Captain Jim!

From:

skygiants

He gets to keep one! Well, sort of. [spoilers] ubjrire gura gung bar qvrf gentvpnyyl naq V'z fgvyy ovggre nobhg vg

From:

sovay

and also wanders all around India bumping into various Battles, Political Intrigues and High-Tension Situations.

Is either the mystery or the romance required for the historial picaresque or is that part of the first-book-ness?

From:

skygiants

The mystery provides the thread of excuse to send him all these places -- he's Investigating! -- so the shape of the book would have to be very different without it. Frankly I don't think the romance is required at all and honestly the book would be exactly the same shape and possibly more coherent if he was in love with the widower who hires him instead, which tbh for a minute is where I thought it was going.

From:

sovay

Frankly I don't think the romance is required at all and honestly the book would be exactly the same shape and possibly more coherent if he was in love with the widower who hires him instead, which tbh for a minute is where I thought it was going.

Damn. Would read.

From:

asakiyume

Wow, you've accomplished the very cool feat of both making me understand and feel exactly where the book falls short but also making me very interested in it for what it does well--sounds charming!

From:

blotthis

sorry, just plus one-ing this. Becca I think this about all your reviews, constantly. It's so impressive

From:

skygiants

sdklf thank you I AM very glad to hear this, it's a thing I try for but often feel I am falling short!

From:

skygiants

thank you!! genuinely I am really happy to hear you say that; I often feel like it's hard to criticize a book at all without coming off as 'so it's not worth your time' and usually that's not at all how I mean it, so I'm very glad that came across here!

From:

ethelmay

picaresque adventure through a richly-realized historical milieu in which our protagonist happens by chance to stumble into, across, around, and through various significant events

I don't know if they're exactly picaresque, but you might enjoy the Lanny Budd novels by Upton Sinclair. I am currently reading number four in the series. It's quite something reading a book written during WWII about spying on the Nazis before the war, when the author didn't know how matters would turn out. I will warn you that they are LONG and, though I rather enjoy the style, definitely repetitive.

From:

skygiants

omg I had no idea that Upton Sinclair (Mr. The Jungle??) had written spy novels?! Thank you this is wild and fascinating to me, and also definitely intriguing!

From:

viridian5

it gets published as Literary Fiction

And I find that so much literary fiction is so busy being Literary and self-conscious about it that I rarely enjoy it.

From:

skygiants

I do like a lot of literary fiction, and yet still I yearn. WHENCE the epic historical potboilers of yore!

From:

viridian5

I think part of my problem is I’ve read some highly-regarded Literary fiction that has some genre trappings and often thinks it’s amazing and dealing with ideas no one ever has before!!!! while I look back at decades of actual genre fiction that’s already done the idea and done it better, less self-consciously, and less “look at my brilliance!”-like. The Literary fiction looking down on genre fiction a bit (or a lot).

From:

torachan

I agree that the setting was by far the best part of this book. I chose not to continue the series due to the fact that they move to America at the end of the book and thus lose the most interesting aspect. I just took a look at the series list on Goodreads and it seems there was a fourth book out this year that has them back in India, but idk that I want to read the two intervening books to get to that one.

From:

skygiants

sad;fjd you're ahead of me, tbh, I genuinely had no idea it was not a standalone! did not occur to me that the series continued but of course in retrospect it's obvious. Perhaps I'll investigate!