Crime Scene: BRIAN STODDART A Madras Miasma. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
Murder, drugs, sex, politics, history and geography provide the substance of Brian Stoddart’s fast-paced first novel set in India.
In 1920 a young woman’s body is found floating in the ‘putrid shallows’ of the Buckingham Canal in Madras:
She lay on her back, grotesquely angled, neck evidently broken. Still standing a few yards away he guessed her age at around thirty. The scuffed and sodden pale blue, mid-heeled shoes were recognisably expensive. So was the full-length, layered, pale blue gown with intricate lace top. Matching pale blue stockings appeared briefly at the ankles before disappearing into the shoes. She was slim, but with curves, that much he could tell.
Superintendent Christian Jolyon Brenton Le Fanu (informally known as LF) and Sergeant Mohammad Habibullah (Habi) are the chief investigators and an integral part of a modern policing team under the principal direction of Inspector-General Sir Maurice Wilson.
The victim is Jane Carstairs, recently arrived from England. An autopsy reveals she had taken morphine and engaged in sexual activity in the hours before her death. In the search for a motive and perpetrators, the case unveils links to the Governor’s palace as well as to a leading figure in local European business circles.
Madras in 1920 is in a state of flux. While Britain survived the First World War with help from Empire (including Indian) armed forces, strong elements of the Raj wish to maintain British sovereignty and resist indigenous attempts towards self-determination.
Le Fanu had a tough war. As a British Indian Army Sixth Division lieutenant, he fought against the Ottoman Empire in Mesopotamia where thousands of lives were lost on both sides. He has also had a tough peace – his wife has returned to England, and a divorce is imminent. He is uncertain about his future, lives alone, but has a secret Anglo-Indian mistress from among his servants. If word got out he would be ostracised socially. He throws his energy into his work.
Habi is a smart detective, a secular Muslim with a Hindu wife who has converted to Christianity. He has a strong tie to his immediate family, takes lunch at home each day whenever possible, but is a strange fit in the police force. Le Fanu attempts to break down any social barrier by suggesting that Habi calls him ‘LF’ but he prefers ‘sir’. Habi is subject to racial slights from the Western ruling class but maintains his resolve. He and Le Fanu are an impressive duo and make consistent breakthroughs in a complex case.
Impressive, that is, except to Police Commissioner Arthur Jepson – a bullying buffoon, a gung-ho law-and-order officer suspicious of scientific police work, a political operator and servant of the ruling class. The chain of command is expertly drawn. Le Fanu and Habi are near the bottom, beneath assistant commissioners, the Commissioner, the Inspector-General, the Chief Secretary, Sir Charles Whitney, and the Governor, Lord Willingdon. Whitney is an arch-conservative who favours Jepson, but fortunately Le Fanu is generally able to bypass him and communicate directly with the progressive Wilson, who also has Willingdon’s ear.
Sir Roland Wark is the chairman and managing director of an import/export company and a shipping specialist. A pompous man, he rose rapidly in local business circles by marrying the boss’s daughter. Frequently drunk, he imagines he is admired in high society but is generally despised.
Virginia Campbell, a supposed friend of the victim, and who poses as a fellow ‘fishing fleeter’ – a young woman from England in search of a husband – is much more than that and a veritable femme fatale. Her efforts to seduce Le Fanu almost succeed in causing him to lose focus on the case. Indeed, such is the frisson between them that his erection takes on a virtual life of its own at a critical point in the investigation.
While the basic plot of A Madras Miasma is to solve a murder case and, in doing so, uncover an international drug ring, it deals with many complexities in a satisfying way.
One of the strengths of the novel, for example, is the author’s rich feel for life on the street:
Men were returning from their morning temple visits, most dressed in lunghi and bare-chested apart from the sacred thread looped across a shoulder that marked them as Brahmins, and bearing the distinctive forehead markings identifying them as followers of either Shiva or Vishnu. Then there were the roadside breakfast sellers who specialised in the idlis and sambar he now favoured. Fruit and flower sellers were everywhere. Kids emerged from small houses, immaculately dressed and on their way to school. Myalpur took education seriously.
Stoddart’s background as a historian enables him to give a strong account of a mass demonstration combining textile workers seeking higher wages and Congress Party members demanding political reform. As Le Fanu observes, it is a crucial test of control between conservative and progressive forces and is ultimately wrecked by Jepson, who recklessly orders soldiers to open fire on the protestors, killing 23 and injuring 85. Although Jepson receives a bollocking from Wilson, he survives, retains friends in high places, and wins appointment as the new Inspector-General.
Le Fanu will need to be wary in the future.
I eagerly anticipate reading the next in the series, The Pallampur Predicament.
Brian Stoddart A Madras Miasma Crime Wave Press 2014 PB 261pp $31.99
Bernard Whimpress is an Adelaide-based historian who usually writes on sport. His most recent book is The Official MCC Story of the Ashes, 2015.
You can buy A Madras Miasma from Booktopia here, and The Pallampur Predicament here.
To see if they are available from Newtown Library, click here.
