A charming whodunnit | Review of ‘Death in the Deccan’ by Aditya Sinha

Can four people die of a heart attack in the same place on the same day? Obviously, this raises a dust, especially as all are connected to a well-known media house. ACP Mona Ramteke is put in charge at the request of the Chief Minister’s daughter. An outsider to Hyderabad, where the crime took place, Mona wonders how she came into the picture but picks up the gauntlet flung at her feet.

And thus we plunge into Death in the Deccan, a whodunnit that keeps you turning the pages. Of the four people who died, three belonged to the Reddy family that owned Deccan Testament, a newspaper that had filed for bankruptcy, and the last was a senior employee: the HR head. With no money on the one hand and COVID-19 lockdowns on the other, salaries have not been paid for months. At this point, I can’t help wondering if author Aditya Sinha, a senior mediaperson himself, is basing his narrative on the travails of a well-known media house from Hyderabad. 

Assisted by SI Pavani, Mona swings into action and finds herself embroiled in a murky mess involving politicians, her colleagues in the force, journalists, doctors, businesspeople and many others. Add to this the confusion around her own personal relationships and the stage is set for a rollicking read. 

This is Mona second appearance (she was a sub-inspector in Sinha’s first outing in fiction, The CEO Who Lost His Head) and she continues to charm. Right in the first chapter, we get a hint of the battles she’s fought when DGP Shrivastava thinks, “She is a Dalit, probably in the force through reservation.” Then, there is the fact that she’s a lesbian, and the blocks stack up. But Mona doesn’t let all this faze her. She’s feisty, courageous and unafraid of speaking her mind, whether to her juniors or seniors. Like Kalpana Swaminathan’s Inspector Lalli and Harini Nagendra’s Kaveri Murthy, Mona Ramteke is another welcome addition to the female detectives club.

krithika.r@thehindu.co.in