Introducing Bombay CID's most dogged, dutiful officer, and one of the greatest, most engaging creations in all detective fiction, H.R.F. Keating's The Perfect Murder: The First Inspector Ghote Mystery includes a preface by Alexander McCall Smith, author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, in Penguin Modern Classics.

One crime that couldn't have happened, one that probably hasn't. Nothing's ever easy for Inspector Ghote. In the house of Lala Varde, a vast man of even vaster influence, an attack has taken place. Varde's secretary, Mr Perfect, has been struck on his invaluable business head. And try as Inspector Ghote might to remain conscientious and methodical, his investigation is beset on all sides by cunning, disdain and corruption. And then there's another urgent case to be dealt with: the impossible theft of a single rupee . . .

H. R. F. Keating (1926-2011) was born at St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex. He went to Merchant Taylors, leaving early to work in the engineering department of the BBC. After a period of service in the army, which he describes as 'totally undistinguished', he went to Trinity College, Dublin, where he became a scholar in modern languages. He was also the crime books reviewer for The Times for fifteen years. His first novel about Inspector Ghote, The Perfect Murder, won the Gold Dagger of the Crime Writers Association and an Edgar Allen Poe Special Award. His other works in Penguin Modern Classics include Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg, Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart, and Under a Monsoon Cloud: An Inspector Ghote Mystery.

If you enjoyed The Perfect Murder, you might like Keating's Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

'May the redoubtable Ghote go on for ever'
Len Deighton

'Beautiful little classics'
Alexander McCall Smith