Murder at The Grand Raj Palace by Vaseem Khan

"Murder at The Grand Raj Palace" by Vaseem Khan -  Finally a murder mystery!

This book was published by Redhook in 2018 and has 384 pages. This is Book 4 of 'Baby Ganesh agency' series.

An American billionaire, Hollis Burbank, buys a painting called 'Scourge of Goa',  at a record price for Indian artist, at the auction at The Grand Raj Palace hotel in Mumbai. The same night he dies. Investigating CBI officer declares it suicide. Lisa Taylor, director of auction house, engages Ashwin Chopra. Chopra's investigations lead to unexpected revelations. 

Was Burbank murdered? What does Chopra unearth? What do Ganesh the elephant, Irfan, Poppy and Rangwala do during this time? What is the truth?

Chopra's investigation takes him in the past to something that happened more than 30 years ago. But he deducts Burbank's identity rather easily. Several suspects are added to the list based on the investigated past. 

Chopra is the honest, meticulous, gentleman investigator with attention to detail. Poppy is his wife and love of life. But she is cross with him in this book. Baby Ganesh and Irfan are their usual self. Agnihotri - an Indian businessman and Burbank's rival,  Adam Padamsee - an art critic, Shiva Swaroop - an artist,  Dasputra - hotel manager are all suspected. 

The story follows the trend seen in previous three books. Chopra patiently investigates,  he leverages his old contacts and his power of reasoning. He investigates relentlessly till he reaches the truth. The story is slow but not boring. It gives readers a good insight about life in Mumbai. The revelation is abrupt. Some more pages would have helped.

As usual there is a side mystery solved by someone other than Chopra. This time Poppy solves the case of a missing bride at a royal wedding in same hotel.

Generally elephant calf Ganesh helps Chopra solve the case with a vital contribution. Here Ganesh has a vital contribution, not to the mystery Chopra solves but to the one Poppy solves. End of the book is dragged a lot, unnecessarily. 

Author has modelled Grand Raj Palace on Hotel Taj to the very detail and history. He also makes use of Bhopal tragedy in this book. The biggest flaw in this murder mystery is that the hotel appears not to have CCTV cameras in the lobby of each floor. If they were there, murderer could have been easily apprehended. Even decent hotels have CCTV cameras in India,  then how come one of the best doesn't?

Author's lack of intimate knowledge of Maharashtra and India's demography is again evident. Villages in Maharashtra are called Ramgadh and Shamgadh (A typical Hindi name), family that lives here are Sen's (A typical Bengali surname) and Dasputra's (Not a Marathi name). Tejwa-Patwardhan is not a Marathi surname. Some improvement is in order. 

Although Ashwin Chopra is a detective,  none of the first three mysteries were murder mysteries. One was about human trafficking,  one was about theft and one was about kidnapping. So a murder mystery was in order and here it is!

Vaseem Khan is a British author who stayed in India for 10 years and met his wife in Mumbai. His idea of the series is to let the readers know what India looks like, feels like, sounds like, smells like, even tastes like. 

Why did I read this book? First 3 were good. 

What I didn't like? Lack of knowledge of Maharashtra.  

What did I like? Slow yet interesting story. 

Recommend reading, if you have read the series.