H.R.F. Keating

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H.R.F. Keating's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    63 Books (2 Series)
  • First Book:
    January 1964
  • Latest Book:
    June 2017
  • Author Rating:
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Full Series List in Order

Detective Chief Inspector Harriet Martens

1 - The Hard Detective (May-2000)
2 - A Detective in Love (Dec-2002)
3 - A Detective Under Fire (Dec-2003)
4 - A Dreaming Detective (Dec-2004)
5 - A Detective at Death's Door (May-2005)
6 - One Man and His Bomb (Sep-2006)
7 - Rules, Regs and Rotten Eggs (Apr-2008)

An Inspector Ghote Mystery

1 - The Perfect Murder (1964)
2 - Inspector Ghote's Good Crusade (1966)
3 - Inspector Ghote Caught in Meshes (1967)
4 - Inspector Ghote Hunts the Peacock (1968)
5 - Inspector Ghote Plays a Joker (1969)
6 - Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg (1970)
7 - Inspector Ghote Goes By Train (1971)
8 - Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart (1972)
9 - Bats Fly Up for Inspector Ghote (1974)
10 - Filmi, Filmi, Inspector Ghote (1976)
11 - Inspector Ghote Draws a Line (1979)
12 - Go West, Inspector Ghote (Jul-1981)
13 - The Sheriff of Bombay (Jul-1984)
14 - Under a Monsoon Cloud (Sep-1986)
15 - The Body in the Billiard Room (Nov-1987)
16 - Dead on Time (Aug-1989)
17 - Inspector Grote, His Life and Crimes (1989)
18 - The Iciest Sin (1990)
19 - Doing Wrong (1993)
20 - Asking Questions (Mar-1997)
21 - Breaking and Entering (Nov-2001)
22 - Inspector Ghote's First Case (Aug-2009)

Book List in Order: 63 titles

  • The Perfect Murder

    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy
    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 1

    It is just Inspector Ghote's luck to be landed with the case of The Perfect Murder at the start of his career with the Bombay Police. For in this most baffling of crimes there is the cunning and important tycoon Lala Varde to contend with. And as if ...

  • Inspector Ghote's Good Crusade

    • / Law Enforcement
    • Buy Buy
    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 2

    This was no ordinary murder, for the victim was Frank Masters, millionaire and philanthropist. The case was bound to attract much public attention. But Inspector Ghote finds that his demands for evidence are met with nothing but lies and evasions....

  • Inspector Ghote Caught in Meshes

    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy
    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 3

    An American visitor to India is killed on the road from Bombay to Poona. Called in to investigate the murder, Inspector Ghote soon makes the acquaintance of the victim''s brother, Professor Gregory Strongbow. But the professor is both stubborn and...

  • Inspector Ghote Hunts the Peacock

    • / Law Enforcement
    • Buy Buy
    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 4

    Inspector Ghote comes to London. The Indian police inspector is to attend an international conference on drug smuggling, and in cold, drizzling London he is faced with his first case outside India - and it's a very odd case.

    ...

  • Inspector Ghote Plays a Joker

    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy
    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 5

    Inspector Ghote embarks on one of his strangest cases when he is ordered to prevent a murder - the killing of a precious flamingo in the Bombay zoo. And then there is the racehorse fancied to win the local Derby, which gets replaced by a donkey... Gh...

  • Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg

    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy
    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 6

    A body without organs and Inspector Ghote with a mission - but no clues. In a small, provincial town in the heart of India, a politician's wife died under suspicious circumstances. That the corpse and the trail have been cold for fifteen years hasn't...

  • Inspector Ghote Goes By Train

    • / Law Enforcement
    • Buy Buy
    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 7

    Quietly dignified Inspector Ghote, 'one of the great creations of detective fiction' (Alexander McCall Smith), finds himself trapped on a train with a fellow passenger who may - or may not - be the legendary confidence trickster he is travelling to c...

  • Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart

    • / Law Enforcement
    • Buy Buy
    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 8

    Some crooks have tried to snatch the plump son of a business tycoon, and have accidentally made off with his playmate instead. But they''re not changing their plan: a payment is to be delivered to them or a small corpse is to be delivered to Inspe...

  • Bats Fly Up for Inspector Ghote

    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy
    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 9

    Insp. Ghote of the Bombay police has been relegated to antipickpocket patrol where he promptly gets himself into one of those fearful fixes which are equally the product of his faults and his virtues....



  • Filmi, Filmi, Inspector Ghote

    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy
    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 10

    A grisly murder has plunged Bollywood, the film capital of India, into chaos. Ghote gets so caught up with giving an Academy Award-winning performance as a sleuth that the curtain almost comes down on his own life....

  • Inspector Ghote Draws a Line

    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy
    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 11

    Sent to a remote part of India to find out who could benefit from Judge Asif's death, Ghote can get no cooperation from the judge until it becomes evident that the anonymous threats are coming from someone in the judge's household....

  • The Murder of the Maharajah

    A maharajah is murdered during a house party in India in 1930, and a plump American widow, her curvaceous daughter, the maharajah's heir and aide, the British resident advisor, and a soft-metals king from the American West are among the suspects...

  • Murder Must Appetize

    A monograph of Golden Age detective fiction from H.R.F. Keating, doyen of classic detective writers.

    Murder Must Appetize is an affectionate return to the halcyon days of the detective story when Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey were y...

  • Go West, Inspector Ghote

    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 12

    When the only daughter of a wealthy Indian newspaper magnate drops out of her Californian college and joins an ashram, hard-working Inspector Ghote, 'one of the great creations of detective fiction' (Alexander McCall Smith), is sent to California to ...

  • Rush on the Ultimate

  • The Sheriff of Bombay

    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 13

    Bombay's red-light district is the scene of the crime, when gentle Inspector Ghote, 'one of the great creations of detective fiction' (Alexander McCall Smith), is forced to take on his most embarrassing investigation yet in this classic mystery - wit...

  • The Man of Gold

    For a respectable governess like Harriet Unwin, her first few weeks in the shabby, inhospitable home of the Partingtons were as unhappy as any she could remember. The bone-chilling cold, the grim sparseness of the meals, the embittered meanness of...

  • Into the Valley of Death

    On Friday next, pub owner Jack Steadman would hang for the murder of Alfie Goode, drunkard and ne'er-do-well. The case was open-and-shut to everyone but Miss Harriet Unwin, who had less than a week to prove that Jack, a Crimean war hero, was innocent...

  • Mrs. Craggs: Crimes Cleaned Up



  • Under a Monsoon Cloud

    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 14

    Inspector Ghote, caught up in trying to cover-up an accident--an accident that became murder--finds himself torn between loyalty to a superior officer and loyalty to the forces of law and order he represents...

  • The Body in the Billiard Room

    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 15

    Summoned from Bombay to the tiny hill station of Ootacamund, home of the exclusive Ooty Club, Inspector Ghote must determine who murdered a club servant on the very billiard table where snooker was invented...

  • Writing Crime Fiction

  • The Governess

    When Harriet Unwin takes the position of governess in the well-to-do Thackerton household, it would seem that fortune has smiled on her at last. That is until William Thackerton is found stabbed and Harriet is accused of murder.... In a desperate ...

  • Inspector Grote, His Life and Crimes

    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy
    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 17

    The best of the shorter adventures of Inspector Ghote, 'one of the great creations of detective fiction' (Alexander McCall Smith), are brought together in this page-turning collection of short stories - with a brand-new introduction by bestselling au...

  • Dead on Time

    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 16

    Dignified, hard-working Inspector Ghote, 'one of the great creations of detective fiction' (Alexander McCall Smith), is handed a case that has the potential to destroy his career in this classic mystery - with a brand-new introduction by bestselling ...

  • The Bedside Companion to Crime

  • The Iciest Sin

    • / Law Enforcement
    • Buy Buy
    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 18

    Inspector Ghote witnesses the murder of a woman with many enemies in high places, and soon he is torn between performing his duties as a police officer and protecting a friend....

  • Great Crimes

  • Doing Wrong

    • / Law Enforcement
    • Buy Buy
    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 19

    Inspector Ghote, 'one of the great creations of detective fiction' (Alexander McCall Smith), plays an unwitting game of cat and mouse with a cunning killer in the holy city of Benares, in this classic mystery - with a brand-new introduction by bestse...



  • The Rich Detective

    After winning a million pounds in a lottery, Detective Inspector Bill Sylvester resigns and uses his winnings to investigate the mysterious deaths of a series of dowagers who willed their estates to a prominent antiques dealer. Reprint....

  • Cheating Death

    Investigating an apparent open-and-shut case on Kanpur campus at Bombay University, where students were able to purchase exam scores and degrees, Inspector Ghote encounters a bigger web of deceit than he anticipated...

  • Is Skin Deep Is Fatal

    In the dark world where predatory young beauty queens compete fiercely for money, a murder is committed. Police Constable Peter Lassington is soon enmeshed in a complicated mystery made more than usually exotic by the flesh that is continuously on sh...

  • The Good Detective

    While Assistant Chief Constable Ned French tries to prevent a gang of thugs from disrupting the Queen's visit, a shady dealing from his own past threatens his reputation, in the follow-up to The Rich Detective. ...

  • Mr. Idd

    in 3rd Culprit (Worldwide)

    Crime in all its devious incarnations is presented in this treat of murderous morsels dished out by old ppros and promising newcomers. Artfully crafted and impossible to put down, each story bountifully demooonstrates why these authors are la creme d...

  • Win Lose or Die

  • Asking Questions

    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 20

    The legendary Bombay inspector returns in his most perplexing and surprising case yet, sparked by an unexpected early-morning visit to Ghote's home by the Commissioner of Police. The commissioner, on behalf of India's reigning film star, would like G...

  • In Kensington Gardens Once...

    H. R. F. Keating, the famed creator of Bombay's Inspector Ganesh Ghote, leaves India for a series of evocative stories set in Kensington Gardens, which will delight all lovers of London. Each of the ten stories is set around one of the monuments and ...

  • A Remarkable Case of Burglary

    First published in 1975, A Remarkable Case of Burglary tells the tale of Val Leary, handsome, charming and broke. On the morning of April Fools' Day, while walking through one of London's wealthiest districts, he notices a young maidservant s...

  • The Soft Detective

    DCI Phil Benholme has the reputation for being soft because he tries to see both sides of every story.

    When Professor Unwala, Nobel Prize winner of 1945, is found dead, Benholme must find the right questions to ask. Was it a tragic acciden...



  • Bribery, Corruption Also

    When Inspector Ghote of the Bombay, India, Police accompanies his wife to Calcutta to take charge of an unexpected legacy, he never expected to confront tough legal challenges to their right to the property, corrupt government officials, conspiracy, ...

  • The Bad Detective

    Jack Stallworthy is a bad detective just on the right side of corrupt. But now he's turning criminal...

    Detective Sergeant Jack Stallworthy has been accepting backhanders for most of his career. And why not? He's spent thirty years...

  • Jack, the Lady Killer

    The Punjab in India. 1935. The sub-continent under the Raj. Fresh from his English boarding school, Jack Steele is a new recruit to the Indian Imperial Police and soon begins to acquire the attitudes of old India hands towards the people under their ...

  • The Hard Detective

    Detective Chief Inspector Harriet Martens - 1

    Two of hard-nosed detective Harriet Martin's officers have been murdered and Harriet must desperately try to prevent further death as she connects the murders to a quote from the Book of Exodus about "Life for life, eye for eye."...

  • Howard

    in Crime Through Time III

    ANDREW GREELEY introduces a monk of the Middle Ages who investigates corruption in the Vatican to crack "The Case of the Murdered Pope"... Sir John Fielding, a blind eighteenth-century magistrate, confronts crime at a stuffy dinner party in BRUCE ALE...

  • Breaking and Entering

    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 21

    All Bombay is buzzing with news of the murder of Anil Ajmani. It is certainly a baffling case, for the millionaire was found stabbed to death in his heavily guarded and tightly secured mansion. Every inspector in the Crime Branch hopes to be the one ...

  • A Detective in Love

    Detective Chief Inspector Harriet Martens - 2

    In that mythical Victorian piano-legs -in-pantaloons era people, at least in the respectable classes, may have convinced themselves that sex was something that manifested itself only when a baby had to be made. But in fact it's us, the sophisticated,...

  • The Hound of the Hanging Gardens

    in Mysterious Pleasures

    'Show me a man or woman who cannot stand mysteries and I will show you a fool. A clever fool -- perhaps -- but a fool just the same' RAYMOND CHANDLER Ever since its creation in 1953, the Crime Writers' Association has celebrated and champione...

  • A Detective Under Fire

    Detective Chief Inspector Harriet Martens - 3

    Detective Chief Inspector Harriet Martens is nicknamed the "Hard Detective" because of her tough stance. In Detective Under Fire, she must turn attention from the criminal world to her own police department, as she is put in charge of an internal inv...

  • A Dreaming Detective

    Detective Chief Inspector Harriet Martens - 4

    "Who killed the preacher?" Harriet Martens is taken aback. This is her first face-to-face meeting with the new Chief Constable, and he shot the question at her the moment she took the seat in front of his desk. Why is he setting out to antagonize ...



  • A Detective at Death's Door

    Detective Chief Inspector Harriet Martens - 5

    If Detective Harriet Martens's husband John hadn't been reading an Agatha Christie classic while the detective herself was sunning by the side of the club pool, she would have been dead before this story began. Unbeknownst to either of them, a killer...

  • One Man and His Bomb

    Detective Chief Inspector Harriet Martens - 6

    Detective Superintendent Harriet Martens takes great pride in her twin sons, who decided to follow in her footsteps by joining the police force in London. She is devastated one night when she learns that one of her sons has been killed by a terrorist...

  • Rules, Regs and Rotten Eggs

    Detective Chief Inspector Harriet Martens - 7

    Detective Superintendent Harriet Martens resolves to resign after the new Assistant Chief Constable at the head of the CID makes her feel inferior in her job. However, her thoughts of resignation are abruptly interrupted when the pro-hunting politici...

  • A Small Case for Inspector Ghote?

    In his proud new position in the prestigious Bombay Police Crime Branch Inspector Ganesh Ghote sees his career finally take off with the prospect of only the most high profile murders to investigate. Unfortunately the Assistant Commissioner of Police...

  • Inspector Ghote's First Case

    An Inspector Ghote Mystery - 22

    From Gold and Cartier Diamond Dagger -- Winner H. R. F. Keating, the long awaited prequel to the acclaimed series Newly promoted Inspector Ghote of the Bombay Police is thrilled to be granted casual leave until he takes up his post, as it allows h...

  • The Strong Man

    An independent island state in the North Atlantic has fallen under the sway of Rolph Mylchraine, a landowner who has gained ascendancy by stage-managing witchcraft orgies and purveying cheap liquor. Opposing him is Keig, a peasant of extraordinary ph...

  • The Dog It Was That Died

    This dazzling off-beat thriller is H.R.F Keating's fourth novel, published in 1962.

    Why is Roger Farrar, if that indeed was his name, on the run in Dublin? Is he a traitor and deserted? The innocent target of a kidnap plot? Or a lonely...

  • The Underside

    This novel, set in Victorian London in its heyday, presents a picture, both horrific and authentic, of the 'underside' of life in the first city of the world.

    It tells of Godfrey Mann, a young painter, who has access to the golden ...

  • Zen there was Murder

    In a country mansion converted to adult educational courses, Mr Utamaro is lecturing on Zen Buddhism to a small and not entirely appreciative audience. But Zen questions and their seemingly quirkish answers predominate, until they are superseded by t...

  • Death and the Visiting Fireman

    A delegation of visiting firemen arrives at Southampton, greeted by a stagecoach which carries a reception committee in early 19th century costume. This Old English greeting has been arranged between their president, Foster P. Schelemberger, and Geor...

  • Death of a Fat God

    The singers who have come to perform at the Flinwich Festival have large temperaments as well as large voices, and cannot readily be diverted from the furious feuds and obsessive quarrels that are essential to their natures. To detect which of th...

  • A Kind of Light

  • Crime Waves 1

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

  • A Long Walk to Wimbledon

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    First published in 1978, this is a London where the worst has happened. There have been riots, huge uncontrolled fires, outbreaks of savage looting, artillery battles, mass flights. The great city lies three parts deserted, open to marauding gangs an...

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

H.R.F. Keating has published 63 books.

H.R.F. Keating does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, A Kind of Light, was published in June 2017.

The first book by H.R.F. Keating, The Perfect Murder, was published in January 1964.

Yes. H.R.F. Keating has 2 series.
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