There is murder most foul. No — murders — most foul.

A dead driver in Mumbai. A kind old lady in Delhi. And in between an M.F. Hussain painting and a killer trail through love, lust, desire, intrigue, and crime. There is a lot brewing in this addictive game of unexpected twists and turns. A lot happens within these 300-odd pages of Feisal Alkazi’s, The Artful Murders.

And in the heart of all of this cunning, deception, and fatality, is a warm, affectionate, sixty year old South Delhi aunty, with all her charm, warmth, and a born-with talent of untangling the most complicated of webs.

Mrs Ragini Malhotra, a widow from the posh Greater Kailash-II area of Delhi is a very clever blend of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, sharing ample resemblances with both iconic detectives — a clear Agatha Christie fan, like the most of us. And yet the character feels very fresh, trust-worthy, believable — all good qualities to find in your forever updating list of fictional detectives. At no point does it blend in a ridiculous caricature. The homage is complete.

While Mrs Malhotra is no doubt the glue that holds this book together, we also have a spate of superbly defined supporting characters, all of whom completely help weld a couple of distant murders come together in a well-tied bow with a cherry on top at the very end. An honest, endearing auto rickshaw driver; a sizzling homosexual from Manipur with dreams and swagger; a convenient-sexual, but brutally honest and hardworking cop trying desperately to do his job and prove himself at the same time; a brilliantly etched private eye stereotyped through the upper atmosphere, hilarious yet essential; and a sprinkling of other characters, both good and bad, make for very entertaining reading.

However — and it’s a big however — the real meat of this story comes from the villains, two women, two very beautiful women, two women who have had more or less similar lives, childhoods which scarred them for life, made them search for their ideal ends made them go to any lengths to get what they believed was theirs, both of who eventually lost their fingers on the pulses of the fates.

There really isn’t much to ever write about a murder mystery. Definitely not in a review. Not event a basic gist. It isn’t fair to the process. A murder mystery needs to be trusted through the first few pages, and then — in the really good ones —you get sucked into their vortex of pledge, turn, prestige. You most definitely will with this one. The “one-chapter-more” urge will carry you through a few sleepless nights. And it will be worth it.

The couple of comments I have against the book are mostly editorial. For one, not giving our Mrs Malhotra a more concrete name when referring to her in the story (not in dialogues, but in narrative). She is mostly Mrs Malhotra, sometimes Ragini, and a whole lot of other times, Mrs M.  This makes it very difficult to keep track of who the conversation is about. If I remember correctly, there was one instance when the same character was referred to with all three names in the same paragraph. You don’t want to be held back by such frivolities when trying to race to the end of the book.

And the second is this penchant for putting translation of Hindi dialogues immediately after in brackets. And most dialogues being relatively long, it thoroughly throws you off your momentum, till you eventually fine-tune your ability to skip everything in brackets. And by then you have reached the end anyways. There are better ways to manage this — if we’re all so concerned about non-native markets. It is true that the Hindi dialogues blend meticulously into the narrative and bring much needed oomph into the storyline, but this translation business is completely criminal.

But like I said, these are editorial issues. It takes nothing away from the germ of the book, the plot — as it thickens, as it thins, as it reaches its logical conclusion.

And what’s even better is the introduction of the next Mrs Ragini Malhotra case at the very end of the book. There will be more of this affable, kind old lady for us to follow — more deceit, more death, more suspense and horror, and more comeuppance.

Based on Mrs Malhotra’s present, the future looks interesting indeed.