Captain Agnihotri, Fourteenth Light, retired, is how the detective introduces himself. THE SILVERSMITH’S PUZZLE starts with a long sea voyage through the Suez Canal, to the main setting, Bombay. I actually found the Captain an unusual voice, because I’m so used to female sleuths in historical fiction. This series is called the Captain Jim and Lady Diana Mysteries, Diana having done Jim the honour of becoming his wife.
In 1894 Adi Framji, Diana’s brother, fled the scene of a murder. His business partner Satya Rastogi was killed, and strangely large sums of money are involved, whether as loans or going missing. Adi hopes Jim Agnihotri, formerly of the Army and of the Bombay constabulary, now a private investigator, can find evidence to clear him. Not just Adi’s good name is involved, but the whole extended family. They are Parsi, working as a large clan, and with the Indian mutiny just over thirty years ago, the British are treading carefully around religious issues.
One thing the British or Raj don’t do delicately is ship money back to the Crown. We see that the colonisers – while providing railways, administration and work – remove money wholesale. The semi-annual transfer of India’s taxes to the Imperial Mint is getting underway, confusing many issues and involving more money than the bravest bandit could dream of stealing. As gold bars are somewhat abstract, we are also invited to consider surgical instruments – made by the silversmith Satya but unsaleable as they were not manufactured in the UK. An old Indian tells us he would have to buy a certificate entitling him to sit in the presence of English people. It’s hard to read this kind of disempowerment for the locals, and their feelings explain the officers’ requesting a police escort for the bullion.
Diana is a wealthy Parsi, but she lost a lot by marrying Jim, an Anglo-Indian. Jim’s mentor is the Sherlock Holmes stories, and the couple first worked together in Murder in Old Bombay. Diana, we see, is a crack shot with a pistol, and many references are made to their earlier cases. This was my first read of the adventures by Nev March, and it did take me a while to get into the names, personalities and locations. By halfway I was well able to follow Jim on his jaunts. He disguises himself many times in the story, passing as British, Indian and in between, and the hapless Adi has to dress as a woman at one point. THE SILVERSMITH’S PUZZLE involves a great deal of sadness and contrasts great wealth with abiding poverty. This admirable historical crime story has a lot to teach us.
Captain JimAgnihotri and Lady Diana Framji return to India as they investigate a murder amidst colonial Bombay\'s complex hierarchy in March\'s fourth mystery.
In 1894 colonial India, Lady Diana\'s family has lost their fortune in a global financial slump, but even worse, her brother Adi is accused of murder. Desperate to save him from the gallows, Captain Jim and Lady Diana rush back to Bombay. However, the traditional Parsi community finds Jim and Diana\'s marriage taboo and shuns them.
The dying words of Adi’s business partner, a silversmith, are perplexing. As Captain Jim peels back the curtains on this man\'s life he finds a trail of unpaid bills, broken promises, lies and secrets. Why was the silversmith so frantic for gold, and where is it? What awful truth does it represent?
Set in lush, late-Victorian India, Captain Jim and Diana struggle with the complexities of caste, tradition, and loyalty. Their success and their own lives may depend on Diana, who sacrificed her inheritance for love. Someone within their circle has the key to this puzzle. Can she find a way to reconnect with the tight community that threw them aside?
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