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Something Black in the Lentil SoupBy Reshma S. RuiaPenguin IndiaPrice: Rs 250 Take a socially inept, stuffy poet who thinks he8217;s arrive...

Something Black in the Lentil Soup
By Reshma S. Ruia
Penguin India
Price: Rs 250

Take a socially inept, stuffy poet who thinks he8217;s arrived and put him in the middle of London8217;s highbrow literary society 8212; the resulting scenario is bound to cause some laughs. Although the reader is made painfully aware of Kavi Naidu8217;s shortcomings early on in the story, it is his trip to England that is the real eye-opener. Naidu is so naive, so gauche, that you feel for him, feel yourself cringing at his every faux pas. His righteous moral indignation at being 8216;8216;assaulted8217;8217; by the High Commissioner8217;s promiscuous wife, or the realisation that his Goan hotel owner is enjoying the amorous advances of a college student 8212; Naidu is dismayed to find himself getting corrupted in the land of Keats and Byron.

Naidu8217;s literary nemesis, Seth, is suave, polished, talented and immensely popular. But he is so arrogant and dismissive of Naidu, that one can8217;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 8212; an unflinching faith in love and his own talent. He eventually does find his true calling and the domestic bliss he craves.

It is Ruia8217;s tongue-in-cheek portrayal of the 8216;8216;Brindian8217;8217; 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 there8217;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 Britain8217;s finest 8212; Scotland Yard 8212; and a brilliant ex-detective, John Madden, who8217;s retired to the country for his wife8217;s sake. Once Madden discovers the brutalised body of a young girl, however, he can8217;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.

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The grisly murders aren8217;t exactly a novelty, but there is a certain old-world charm to Airth8217;s style. The ending is no surprise, but it8217;s not a let-down either.