On The Shelf

Naidu’s literary nemesis, Seth, is suave, polished, talented and immensely popular. But he is so arrogant and dismissive of Naidu, that one can’t help feeling sorry for the poor guy, who somehow bumbles his way through the story. Naidu may be the laughingstock of London, but he has a spark of something — an unflinching faith in love (and his own talent). He eventually does find his true calling and the domestic bliss he craves.

It is Ruia’s tongue-in-cheek portrayal of the ‘‘Brindian’’ or British Indian and the Anglicised Indian, with his post-colonial hangover, that makes this a fun read.

The Blood-Dimmed Tide
By Rennie Airth
Macmillan
Price: 5.60 pounds

The title is a reference to a passage in The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats, but there’s nothing poetic about the storyline. You have a psychopathic serial killer who seeks out young girls, assaults them and bashes their faces in, disfiguring them completely. Not a pretty picture.

But then you have Britain’s finest — Scotland Yard — and a brilliant ex-detective, John Madden, who’s retired to the country for his wife’s sake. Once Madden discovers the brutalised body of a young girl, however, he can’t just go back to his idyllic life.

The story is set in Britain in 1932, and there are several references to the Nazi rise to power in Germany.

The grisly murders aren’t exactly a novelty, but there is a certain old-world charm to Airth’s style. The ending is no surprise, but it’s not a let-down either.