The people of San Felice, still dizzy from Count Jeorge de la Bolla’s party, wake up to the news that their host had been murdered. The grapevine of servants carries the tale of the death to the diplomat bosses. While the Indian ambassador is informed by his butler, the maid cries out the story at the Counsellor’s house. As we catch people receiving the dreadful news, their relationship to the flamboyant count is revealed as is the life and pace of the Latin American city.
The author, Chandralekha Mehta of Nehru-lineage, is a diplomat’s wife. Murder In San Felice turns the spotlight on life of diplomats. Mehta not only has an eye for detail but also has the talent to weave it into the story.
We begin to know more about the dead man as the town women mutter between their sobs that they were “so close” to him. On one hand Counsellor Bhagwan, is relieved to know that the man with whom he suspected his wife was having an affair was dead, on the other the diplomat’s daughter is worried that she had left her riding shoes in the count’s room.
Pepe, a visitor at an exclusive boutique, claims he had killed the count by turning down the count’s “proposal”. As the list of suspects grows Anil, a prospective groom for the diplomat’s daughter Mona, arrives in the San Felice.
The newly-arrived guest is drawn into the mystery as he is told that the police had found Mona’s boots under the dead count’s bed. An apparently naive 19-year-old Mona is hence being seen as the final “kill” of dead the Count. To add to it Mona confides in Anil that she could not find her passport and feared she may have dropped it next to her boots on the eve of the murder.
Chandralekha Mehta adds a string of colourful characters to the story. The police commissioner, for example, is a man obsessed with the exotic, much like the dead count. The Indian community in San Felice must take his fascination with a pinch of salt: “You have a marvelous country, so spiritual! I would give anything to visit it, but I fear terrible poverty would upset me too much… People dying of hunger, lying in the streets with no shelter. And all those sacred cows. No, unfortunately I can never go to India.” Besides, the commissioner has a fetish for sarees.
He asks Anil to send him a saree with peacock embroidery from India, which he intended to use as a table spread.
The ambassador’s cook is another such character. A great chef with slovenly ways and dim wits, Gulati Singh, breaks down when the ambassadress meets sudden death at the National Day reception.
This death coming soon on the heels of the first one, still unsolved, leaves everyone unsettled. The mystery deepens when Anil goes to the Bhagwan’s house to borrow a book and finds a note threatening to reveal the secrets about Shiela, the Counsellor’s wife.
Meanwhile, Mona is deeply affected by the death of her mother. Hardly absolved from role in the count’s death, she finds herself a suspect in her mother’s death as well. The ambassador, on the other hand, “flowers” after the death of his wife. Curtailed from pursuing his interests by his wife, he now finds himself a free man. His fancy for artefacts, which had till now been restrained only to an ugly collection of daggers, now expands to expensive china.
A parallel plot of diamond smugglers begins to unfold and a Byomkesh Bakshi-style Anil finds his way to the bottom of the mystery of two murders, missing passports and blackmailers.
The best thing about Chandralekha is the consistency of her disciplined style. At less than 200 pages, this is a slim, easy-to-read and engaging novel. Characters are drafted with care and life-like feel.
The biggest surprises of the book is the daft undercurrent of playfulness.
A sense of humour runs through the story without diluting the plot. Suspense can be a tricky job for a debutant novelist but Chandralekha seems to have done it with considerable ease. Murder, infidelity, smuggling, and quirk all are brought within the embassy house.
If you are still wondering who killed Count Jeorge de la Bolla, the only man who could have told you does not survie the treacherous ride of Chandralekha Mehta’s plot.