Inspector Ashwin Chopra (retired) has a perplexing task in front of him indeed after taking his wife to Mumbai’s Prince of Wales Museum to see England’s crown jewels, only to have them stolen just as he and his wife have their turn with the famed gems. After they regain consciousness and composure, it’s not long before Chopra returns to the case after an old friend, standing to be accused of the theft, begs for his help. With all of India and England’s best and brightest (and most belligerent, to happily continue with the alliteration) on the case, what can Chopra do to solve it that no one else can? Well, it involves a lot of bluster, sneaking around, getting covered completely in cake and donning a disguise or two – and, of course, the help of his detective agency partner Ganesha, who happens to be an elephant, and is excellent at stakeouts (as long as he is kept sated by Dairy Milk chocolate and mango juice).

Khan’s series of Baby Ganesh Agency books is fun and vibrant, but don’t let getting covered in cake fool you – it doesn’t skirt past the darker places in Chopra’s beloved Mumbai. Characters are a delight – from Chopra’s wife Poppy, who leaps off the page with her determined enthusiasm for solving every problem she can, to Poppy’s insufferable mother (readers will undoubtedly hope a future book involves matricide), to the probably orphaned youth Ifran, who fills a hole in Chopra and Poppy’s life that they had only sometimes let themselves recognise. Bad things happen to people who both don’t and do deserve it, and the theft of the Koh-i-Noor diamond, taken unhappily from India in the first place, is not the only crime to be solved. This is an inventive and enjoyable series, and an excellent armchair way to enjoy a luminescent view of the Mumbai Chopra defends with such purity of intent (if not with temper!).

Fiona Hardy