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Journalism of Courage
In Stephen Alter’s mystery novel Death in Shambles, the protagonist Lionel Carmichael, a retired police officer, goes to meet an old lady who might be a witness. Having told Carmichael what she knows, Gladys Ahluwalia says, “But of course, I’ve read all of my Agatha Christies and know how clues like this can help solve a case. You probably think her books are nonsense, but I’ve always loved a good whodunit and I prefer Miss Marple to that prig, Poirot.”
Is this just a passing reference to one of the greatest mystery writers of them all, or is Alter paying even more of a homage to Christie with this book? Because there is much here that might seem familiar to lovers — like Ahluwalia — of the Miss Marple stories. There is a small town, tucked away in the countryside — a place contained enough, and with a population tiny enough, to allow pretty much everybody to know everybody else. A place where there’s a definite hierarchy, too, with the relatively wealthy on the one hand (many of them elderly and retired), the poor — local villagers who work mostly as domestic help for the wealthy — on the other. There is, like ‘that prig, Poirot’, a retired police officer who sets out to solve a murder mystery, when the local cops find themselves out of their depth.
Other than that, there is not too much of a resemblance to Christie’s cosy mysteries: this is grimy and more noir. Shambala Villa (the ‘Shambles’ of the novel’s title, so nicknamed because it is decrepit and filthy) is sleazy. Sleazy not just as a result of years of neglect, but because of its owner, Reuben Sabharwal, who styles himself a godman and calls himself Bhagwan. There are seances, random arrivals and departures of followers of his cult — and one day, a double murder: Reuben is found stabbed to death in his kitchen. Above him, hanging from the ceiling, is a figure wrapped in a sari.
And, as he begins to investigate, Carmichael finds out just how much sleaze surrounded Reuben Bhagwan.
One of the most memorable elements of Death in Shambles is the way Alter evokes a small hill town nestled in the mountains of Uttarakhand. From the precipitous paths to the rain drumming on the roof, from the birds around to the religious fervour of a jagran in which a Devi is invoked, the fictitious Debrakot could very believably be a real place.
The people in it are every bit as real: from those that time seems to have forgotten, to those who embody all the go-getting drive of the 21st century. There are many characters in this eclectic lot, but all three-dimensional in their own way: flaws and virtues, follies and wisdom mark each of these people in a very realistic way.
Death in Shambles is a solidly noir mystery, but when it comes to detective work, it’s just slightly underwhelming. True, Carmichael is a retired cop and there is some sleuthing, combined with police procedural. But the solution, ultimately, comes not so much as a result of his deductions but based on a confession made by someone complicit. The sordid secrets are instead the main element of this book: a story which peels away the layers of a sleepy and picturesque hill station to reveal the dirt that lies beneath.
It’s a description that might well fit many of the characters and their circumstances too: the seemingly solid marriage that hides infidelity; the godman who is crooked through and through; the city doctor who will bribe, threaten, or both, to save his reputation.
Death in Shambles, instead of being the Christie-esque whodunnit, is really more a thought-provoking, entertaining and occasionally witty look at modern Indian society. Debrakot could be any small town; its melange of characters could inhabit any Indian settlement, and those same foibles, the same corruption and filth, would strike true.
Madhulika Liddle is an author based in the NCR. Apart from historical fiction and short stories, she also writes on food, cinema and travel
