Please leave your comments below, or you can email H.R.F. Keating with your thoughts, questions, or opinions. (Please make sure to change the word AT in the email address to the symbol @ when writing your email. This is a deliberate misspelling in order to prevent spam.)
Also, please make sure to visit the News & Discussion page to discuss Keating’s books with other fans.
H.R.F. Keating 
March 7, 2016 at 9:26 am
Dear Harry
I’m from Pakistan . So where can i find inspector ghote collection in reasonable price in PKR?
March 15, 2016 at 10:37 pm
Dear Muhammad
This is Sheila, Harry’s wife, replying to you because sadly he died five years ago. It is always good to hear from people wanting to read his Ghote series and I do know that sometimes in Pakistan and India it is difficult to find copies. However Penguin India is distributing the four titles in paper-back: Under a Monsoon Cloud; Inspector Ghote Breaks An Egg; Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart and The Perfect Murder which Penguin in the UK published in their Modern Classic series. Then, of course, there is Amazon where many titles are available. The Penguin titles are also available as Ebooks from penguin themselves and one or two are also available in that form through Amazon. Should you enjoy listening to Audio Books almost all the Ghote titles, as well as many of his non-Ghote books, are available to download from Audible. Please let me know if you are still unable to locate some of his books.
With best wishes Sheila
March 21, 2016 at 2:49 pm
I’m very thankful to you for giving me this information and your time.. i will try to find them..
March 16, 2016 at 1:27 am
Hi Muhammad,
I am from India and would love to send across a set of books by the unmatched H R F Keating for your reading pleasure.
March 21, 2016 at 2:48 pm
Hi Nagarag Parsadh,
Im very thankful if you send me a set of books. Please .. tell me how I Contact you.. here is my email.
malikrizwan0206@gmail.com
July 6, 2015 at 1:31 am
Hello,
I am a graduate student currently enrolled in a class, “Mystery and Detective Fiction”. One of our assignments involves selecting a story from “The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories” and researching and creating a presentation on the author and the story. I selected Mr. Keating’s story, “A Dangerous Thing”. While I have found lots of information on Mr. Keating, I have been unable to find much on “A Dangerous Thing”. Are you aware of any reviews or analyses on this story? If so, would you mind forwarding that information or links to me? Any interesting facts about the story or things that inspired him to write the story would be quite helpful as well. Any help or information you are able to provide would be greatly appreciated.
July 17, 2015 at 8:19 pm
Delighted to hear that from that truly illustrious collection of crime writers you chose Harry’s story. Short stories were something that he delighted in writing and he wrote well over a hundred fitting them in between the completion of a book and the commencement of the next. As you know from your research his main character was Inspector Ghote but he also had a short series of seven books featuring Harriet Martens and an even shorter three book series with a Victorian Governess as the protagonist but Mrs Craggs was different. In 1963 – before Inspector Ghote was published -she featured, along with her fellow charlady Mrs Milhorne, in a novel with an opera setting. Up to that point his books had all been one-offs each with a different detective and all with extremely bizarre settings and he had never contemplated having a series detective. Then came Ghote and everything changed. He never gave Mrs Craggs another complete book but he did continue to write many short stories centred on her. In 1985 Buchan and Enright (GB) and St Martin’s Press (USA) published a collection of fourteen Mrs Craggs stories which included five he had originally written for BBC Radio – which I, his actor wife, read (I also recorded ‘Death of a Fat God’ as an Audio book in 2013) – these were broadcast under the overall title of The Five Senses of Mrs Craggs. I am sorry that I have not, so far, managed to include a section on Harry’s Web site that at least lists all his short stories – it is on my list of things to do! Please let me know if I can be of any further help and good luck with the assignment.
May 23, 2015 at 10:41 am
Hi,
I am doing some research into the authors published by Hodder & Stoughton, and have come across a 1966 paperback novel they published -“Deadlier than the male” by a Henry Reymond – apparently based on a Bulldog drummond film.
As these are Mr keating’s first names, is it possible he wrote the book, or is it just a coincidence?
Many thanks
John
July 21, 2015 at 6:18 pm
Yes you are right Henry Reymond were indeed Harry’s first two names and yes Deadlier than the Male was one of three ‘books of the film’ he did in his early impoverished days as a freelance novelist. Speaking personally I have never understood who would want to read the novelisation of a film-script which was made from a novel originally but at the time the money was a God-send. Sheila Keating
February 14, 2014 at 8:06 pm
An email from reader JRF:
Hello
I have been scouring the Internet trying to find a synopsis of the short story “GUP” by Mr. Keating, so far without success. As far as I can tell it appeared in the collection “Verdict of 13”.
I am in the process of cleaning up a database of my book collection and although I have a copy of the ‘Verdict’ book, the book is buried in a box as I’ve just moved into a smaller living space.
I looked through the web site http://hrfkeating.com without success. Could you please help me?
Sincerely,
JRF
February 14, 2014 at 8:06 pm
Yes you are perfectly right that Harry’s short story ‘Gup’ was published in 1979 in the collection that Faber and Faber did for the Detection Club – 13 stories by 13 celebrated authors –The Verdict of Thirteen. Gup is the Hindi word for gossip and the story of the jealousies and infidelities of the various sahibs which ends in a murder which results in a false accusation and subsequent enforced suicide of one of the sahibs, is told through the multiple gossiping groups of servants who look after the sahibs. I hope that answers your query. I am very aware that there is a gap on Harry’s site and I hope at some point to be able to put up a comprehensive page that will detail the more than a hundred short stories he wrote.
Yours Sheila
September 16, 2013 at 3:12 pm
Dear Sheila,
I have managed to grab many of the Ghote titles during my visits to India over the past few months and also managed to share the books with close friends who now pester me for more of Ghote ! I am sorry I am perhaps not doing justice to Harry in being partial to a particular series but there is such a thing as first love. I also have to admit that the as I write this I am shedding a few tears for the amazing Harry who wrote of Mumbai and Ghote 10 years after writing the books. We have a book club and on Thu, October 31, ’13 we have a discussion on two of his best (in my opinion) – The Perfect Murder and Under a Monsoon Cloud.
Regards,
Nagaraj
P.S. Is it Harry who makes a cameo appearance in the movie The Perfect Murder ? At the airline counter ?
Reply
September 24, 2013 at 4:27 pm
Thank you for keeping in touch. You have chosen a good day for your next meeting, 31st October was Harry’s birthday. If you like you can add my own choices for a favourite title to your discussions. I absolutely agree with you over ‘Under a Monsoon Cloud’ although I am not sure that it is the best book for a first meeting with Ghote given that he does break the rules of most people’s moral code. To that I would add ‘Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart’ for both the story and the character; ‘Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg’ as probably being the most Indian of them all; ‘Doing Wrong’ as an amazing feat in maintaining suspense when the murderer is known from the start and for the philosophical thought that underlies the story.
It sounds to me as though you have founded a mini Keating fan club – perhaps it could be a forerunner to a global appreciation Society!
Yes it is Harry in the airport queue in the Perfect Murder film, carrying on the tradition started by Alfred Hitchcock.
I look forward to hearing from you again, warmest wishes, Sheila
September 15, 2013 at 7:33 pm
Dear Sheila,
Please accept my condolences on the passing of Mr. Keating. I just learnt of his passing, with a great sense of loss. How I would have loved to communicate with him. To think that he was addressing his fans on this very forum just a few years ago!
I’m an independent film maker in India, having made some short films and documentaries, the latter being marketed internationally.
I understand that as an author his primary concern would be to encourage the exploration of the world he created via his written words, which I agree paint a picture so detailed, no further exposition is necessary. However I’m an ardent admirer of his wit and vision, indeed, I believe he’s the Wodehouse of the Indian theme,
I too came upon his work following the Merchant Ivory film, and having found the one bookshop in New Delhi that carried the Penguin collection, grabbed the entire lot.
I’d like to adapt one of the Harry’s novels into a feature. I’m cherry picking some of the best award-winning cinematographers in India to bring his vision to life. Some locations have been identified, the rural ones primarily. I’d like to ask permission toward that end.
May I please request a private correspondence at my email? The utmost discretion is my concern, which is why I haven’t specified the name of the novel itself. I’d like to be the first to make the film on that particular story.
Please let me know the terms and conditions of such a venture.
Thanks!
Dr. Sikka
September 24, 2013 at 4:27 pm
Dear Dr Sikka I am absolutely delighted that you want to make a film of one of the Ghote books and that you so obviously understand what Harry was doing but I am afraid that the filmic rights to all the Ghote titles are in a rather fluid state at present so I cannot enter into negotiations over ‘Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg’. But I will keep you posted. Warmest wishes Sheila Keating’
March 9, 2013 at 1:37 pm
Greetings from Singapore.
Have been an avid reader of the Ghote series since the 80s. In an era without the internet, there was only a little knowledge that I could gather about the writer, who I assumed would have spent a life time in Bombay !
At last, Zafar Hai directed the movie, The Perfect Murder – I was hooked to Harry.
After this rereading the Ghote series was wonderful; I could imagine Naseeruddin Shah as Ghote and every line came alive. I had always wanted to meet Harry, now he lives on. I lend my copy of the Ghote series books to my friends and tell them that the writer never visited Bombay until much later !
Regards,
Nagaraj
March 14, 2013 at 8:22 pm
Dear Nagaraj
It is always good to hear of continued interest in Harry’s writing.
You also raise quite a novel point. How many readers enjoy the books all the more because of a screen image of the characters? While Harry was absolutely delighted with Naseerudin’s portrayal of Ghote and conversely Naseerudin, himself, is on record as saying that he only needed to look into Harry’s eyes to get the key to how to play Ghote, I suppose that, in common with all authors, Harry would have hoped that the picture he created through the words would be enough to conjure up a living image of the character. Admittedly, quite deliberately, Ghote was never physically described except perhaps for his bony shoulders but most readers seem to have had a very strong picture of him in their minds. Almost to a man the reviewers referred to him as ‘little’ which was not entirely so with Naseerudin nor indeed with Sam Dastor, who played him in an original TV film in Great Britain, although both could be described as ‘neat’. I do not necessarily believe that Harry imagined him as ‘little’. Nor was his age ever specified.
Should any of your friends want to possess their own copies you may not know that in 2011, at the exact time of Harry’s death, Penguin Books published four of the Ghote titles in their Modern Classics series – which can be found internationally on Amazon and which they also put out as eBooks. Also, you may not know that the Ghotes were only half of Harry’s fiction output. If you are interested I would happily tell you about some of the others, many of which are available as ebooks and all of which will shortly be available as audio recordings made by AudioGo in unabridged form.
Do you have a favourite title? In the course of writing his biography I have re-read all of them and I have several that I find outstanding for different reasons. A wife is a poor substitute as a correspondent for the author himself but perhaps better than nothing.
Sheila
March 16, 2013 at 10:02 am
Dear Sheila,
Thank you very much for your mail. I think Harry was a a gift to us, what else could it be that be could base his characters on a country he had never visited. I have not many people hooked on to his books.
Did you know that the great Indian director and film maker Satyajit Ray wrote many books on his detective character; Prodosh Mitter, affectionately known as Feluda. In one of the novel, A Killer in Kailash, the crime takes the detective to Maharashtra and there working along with the detective was an Inspector Ghote ! Coincidence ? Am not aware of the choice of name, perhaps we should ask his son Sandip Ray.
Thanks for letting me know of the Penguin Collection. I will order one on the Internet.
My favorite title is, Under the Monsoon Cloud is my favorite. I keep re-reading my collection. Just finished The Sheriff of Bombay.
Thanks to your prompt replies, I keep my reading active. Educate me on his non-Ghote works please when you have the time.
Warm regards,
Nagaraj Prasadh
Sent from my iPad
March 21, 2013 at 8:22 pm
Dear Nagaraj
To reply to your point about Satyajit Ray first. I do remember that Harry had some contact with him at some stage and H. was aware of Inspector Ghote’s name being used – a sort of internal joke.
The three of the four Penguin Modern Classics, of which ‘Under a Monsoon Cloud’ is one, were chosen by his agent and myself as favourites of both Harry and ourselves – ‘The Perfect Murder’ was chosen by the editor of the series because it was the first of the series. A later title ‘Doing Wrong’ is often singled out as a pinnacle in the series.
You will see if you click on Books on the Web site that they are divided up under 8 different headings. The first five are all novels (including those available as eBooks.) Under the first Ghote section comes one devoted to Harriet Martens – there are seven of these starting with ‘The Hard Detective’ – this character was the fifth protagonist in a short series about British detectives and each takes some character trait that could be regarded as a possible hindrance to their success in their jobs. Harry said that he was finding it difficult to find an appropriate character who would be ‘Hard’ until he thought of making her a woman. During the series she became much more human and has to live through some deeply personal disasters – particularly ‘One Man and His Bomb’ and ‘A Detective at Death’s Door’. The other titles leading up to the ‘Hard Detective’ are listed under the heading Crime, as are a short series if three about a Victorian governess (i980s)and the six titles that preceded the first Inspector Ghote in the 1960s. The heading Novels has four titles under it and are not crime stories. These are all very different books and should you be interested I could at a later stage give you more details about them – but probably Amazon would do as well if they have copies to sell.
I am very busy preparing to record ‘Death of a fat God’ as an Audio book in April – one of the very early titles set in a provincial Opera House and full of very temperamental French, Italian, Spanish, German, Russian and American opera singers – difficult to read aloud but a very funny book.
Best Wishes Sheila
February 17, 2013 at 3:20 pm
Recently finished “Doing Wrong,” and became interested again in the late author’s work. At the Secunderabad Club in Hyderabad I became acquainted with a few books, and then when leaving in 1988 read no more of them. Sorry to hear of Mr Keating’s passing, and will not complete the reading of the rest of his work. The locale of Bombay, which I only visited once, reminds me of many cities in India at the time my wife and I lived there 1986-88, and wonder if and when Mr Keating lived there? The Ghote character seems true to form, as do many of the officials with whom he is at odds.
March 5, 2013 at 8:42 pm
I apologise for the delay in answering your posting, especially as I know Harry would have been delighted about the Secnderabad Club – he was particulary pleased when he heard about his books finding their way to different parts of the world. To answer your question about his living in India – he didn’t. It was always considered a bit of a miracle that he wrote 8 Ghote books before visiting India. Air India very generously flew him out to Bombay and put him up at the Taj hotel for three weeks so that he could see for himself what he had hitherto only researched or imagined. This visit , which thankfully showed him that his facts were, for the most part, accurate – he wrote in an article after the visit that he was most pleased that he had got the atmosphere right. This visit was quickly followed by the BBC taking him out there again to make a documentary which they called ‘The Search for the Real Inspector Ghote.’ During that film there is a wonderful interview with Deputy Commisioner of Police Kulkarni which further confirmed that Ghote himself would have been an ideal policeman and much welcomed in the ranks of Commissioner Kulkarni’s Crime Branch.
Should you be interested Harry also wrote a lot of other books both crime and straight novels and a varied list of non-fiction titles – they are listed under ‘Books’ on the Web site. If you would like any other information do not hesitate to contact me and I’ll try and be a little prompter in my reply. I was married to Harry for 57 years so should be able to provide answers to most questions.
Sheila
March 31, 2011 at 2:20 am
Dear Sir/Madam
I am writing to say how sorry I am to hear about the passing of Mr Keating, please could you send my condolences to the family.
Nick
August 9, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Dear Mr. Keating,
I had seen your famous Crime Fiction ‘The Perfect Murder’ on silver screen a long time ago in 1988 in Delhi . I wish to read your another Gold Dagger winning fiction ‘The Murder of the Maharajah’ but could not get it on the reputed book stores in Calcutta like Oxford. Can you please inform where this book will be available in Calcutta / India.
Regards,
Amit Mitra
Calcutta
August 23, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Dear Amit Mitra,
I am glad you feel encouraged to find another book of mine to read after The Perfect Murder. I would not think that too many book shops throughout the world are stocking The Murder of the Maharajah after all this time. But of course where one can generally get such titles is on the internet at Amazon – sometimes remarkably cheaply. Hope you have success.
Yours Harry Keating
August 7, 2010 at 11:46 pm
Dear H. R. F. Keating,
I have heard of the Inspector Ghote books but I not yet read them but I do know that your Ghote books are very excited, tell me did you use research for your Ghote novels or was it your imagination? and also how did it all began with the Ghote novels and your writing career?
thanks
best wishes
Jak Taberner
PS
I am planning to write crime novels one day.
August 23, 2010 at 6:54 pm
Dear Jak Taberner,
You ask about research and imagination before I started to write about Inspector Ghote and the answer is a mixture of both. I researched extensively for about a year from my London home before starting to write, using books, newspapers, television and films about India. It was not until I had already published several of the novels that I had the opportunity of visiting India and seeing it all first hand.
You ask how it all began. First of all I had always wanted to be a writer and I had always read crime novels. My first four books (with English settings) were published in the UK but not in America so in order to increase my sales I decided to find a subject that would be acceptable to the Americans. I settled on India. The first Ghote title The Perfect Murder did well and achieved an American publisher.
I suggest that if you want to know more about my books and myself you explore my Web page which contains a wide variety of articles.
And I am pleased that Inspector Ghote has inspired you with the notion of writing – the best of luck.
Yours Harry Keating
July 25, 2010 at 9:41 pm
Dear Mr. Keating,
I sent you an email without realizing that I could have done through the website. So I am insering my email below just so others can see how far flung and widespread your readers are!
Dear Sir,
I just finished reading your book “Dr Ghote draws a line”, a book that my daughter had bought – presumably, a number of years ago, when she was a high school student and was visiting India often. As a recently retired person, I have retreated to my old hobby of reading books and I was fortunate enough to find this one on her shelf.
What a book I found it to be! Having grown up in India, I could much appreciate the fine details you provided on the Indian style of living, especially among the bureaucracy. The brief bio you have on your website does not say anything about your ever having lived in India even for a brief stretch and I am amazed by the authenticity you have been able to provide to Dr. Ghote, Sir. Asif and his companions. The last line of the book is just the best sentence in the book.
Thanks and Regards,
—
Durai Raghavan
Plano, TX, USA
August 5, 2010 at 7:36 am
Dear Durai Raghavan,
Your email was the kind that gives any author great pleasure to receive. The book was written 32 years ago and I must admit the detail now escapes me – I think I must re-read it and I can only hope that I find it as enjoyable as you did.
The answer to your question is that no I never lived in India and indeed wrote at least four of the titles before I managed to visit the sub continent. I did of course research widely for about a year before I wrote the first Ghote book, The Perfect Murder. I found that I developed a strong affinity with the country and my wife tells me that our home in London has become a shrine to it. I am delighted that you find the books have the authentic Indian atmosphere.
I find your Dr Johnson quotation intriguing, perhaps I should have used it at the front of the book. I hope you will be able to find some of the other titles listed on my Web site. Most of them are available in America and certainly there are many to be found on the internet.
Thank you for taking the trouble to write
Yours Harry
July 23, 2010 at 10:46 am
Hello Mr Keating, It’s been a long time and I do not think you will remember, but as a young reporter I had met you and given you a day’s tour of Bombay (including the Bombay stock exchange) way back in 1983-84. We then had a nice cup of tea and a chat. Meanwhile I am no longer a young reporter (though still a journalist) I am writing to you because I just recently saw The Perfect Murder again and wanted to check out what’s new on the Inspector Ghote front. Your latest (A small case for Inspector Ghote) is not available here in Bombay, (or Mumbai as it is called.) Do your publishers plan to distribute it here? Many thanks and glad to see the good Inspector is still going strong. rgds, Sidharth Bhatia
August 5, 2010 at 7:35 am
The 1980s do seem a very long time ago and my 83 year old memory is not as good as it was, but I do remember your name and that you and many others were very kind spending your time helping me to get to know India better. Alas I find that writing in my rather frail state of health seems beyond me so there have been no new titles since A Small Case for Inspector Ghote. I am at a loss as to what happened about that title not being issued in India by my British Publishers but I will have another go at them. I would be delighted if it was to be in print in India.
Thank you for making the enquiry and I hope your journalism is going well.
Yours Harry
January 18, 2010 at 11:59 am
In an email received on 20 December 2009, David S. wrote:
Hello Mr. Keating!
I am an American who grew up in India and have worked there for
awhile. Now I work in Malaysia. I really enjoy your novels, esp. your
Ghote ones. I’m glad to see you have picked him up again! I was just
wondering–how do you continue to get new ideas?
Also, I see that your last three novels have remained in Hardback, and
Allison and Busby haven’t put out paperback copies. Is there any
reason for that? Are there any plans in the future for paperbacks? (I
am sorry, but I’m not that rich to be able to afford hardback.)
Are you working on a new book? If so, may I ask (and get some kind of
answer, haha!) what?
Thanks for giving reading pleasure to so many!
your fan,
David Stengele
January 18, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Dear Mr.Stengele
Thank you indeed for writing. An author (certainly this one) is always gratified to learn that what they have written has affected some unknown reader somewhere. Sadly the answer to your question ‘How do you get new ideas?’ is that in days past I would suddenly find, often in bed where I would scribble a memo to myself, that something just arrived in my head. Alas, now – I am a rather frail 83 – nothing seems to come, perhaps because I know that I am unlikely to be able to write a whole book. But encouragement from such as yourself might work a miracle.
Why no paperbacks? Answer Allison and Busby are apparently too small an outfit to venture on risking them, and, although Penguin will be publishing a range of past titles in 2011 A&B are sitting on the rights of the last three.
May I post your email with my answer as a comment on the Web site?
Yours gratefully Harry
November 25, 2009 at 6:21 pm
I sent you an email a little bit earlier; I didn’t scroll down to the bottom of the page.
I am an occasional blogger and an avid web-trawler, and came across some blogs/ stories that credit you, among others, with coining the term ‘Bollywood’. Have you had anything to do with it?
I’d have you know that I did contact another of the persons credited with this coinage and she mentioned your name in her response; you can read her entire response in the email that I sent you.
I’d appreciate your response greatly – you can respond here or to my email.
I’d also have you know that I enjoyed your Inspector Ghote books a lot, and now my 11-yr old daughter enjoys them too. I am sure my five-ur old will also grow up to like them.
November 29, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Dear Alok,
Just to say that I certainly do not think I invented the term Bollywood: I would not have dared. When I came to write Filmi, filmi, Inspector Ghote, the title in the Inspector Ghote series that was published in the UK in 1976, it was after I had been treated most generously by the Indian film industry, touring the studios and meeting the people involved there, but the industry was already saddled with the, opprobrious if you like, but possibly affectionate, name, Bollywood. Possibly emanating from the Bombay,as they were then, gossip journalists. Bavinda Collaco says she invented it in 1976/77 but to fit my writing of the book and its publication date she may have had to coin it before that date. I may have helped to perpetuate the name but I make no claim to its invention.
Reading your extended email may I say that I am delighted that you and your eleven year old daughter like the books – not one of my 9 grandchildren ever read them at that age – and I can only reply that I enjoyed writing about Ghote and India enormously. There are two new titles now in which I take Ghote back to the beginning of his career in the 1960s Inspector Ghote’s First Case Uk and US and A Small Case for Inspector Ghote? UK 2009 both available on Amazon of course.
Yours, Harry
November 6, 2009 at 4:40 pm
I just finished the brilliant “Doing Wrong.” During the time that I read the book, I Googled pictures of Benares and I was delighted to see that the images of the city were so vividly portrayed in the novel.
November 16, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Thank you. It is always gratifying that when one has not visited a place it is still possible for research and the imagination to get it right. Are you Tim Cook of the Canadian War Museum and Carleton University? I have visited Canada once but never written about it. — Harry
November 25, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Many sorries. I’m not the Tim Cook that you refer to. I am but a simple country patent lawyer in rural Texas, USA.
November 29, 2009 at 4:22 pm
No need for apologies. I think I am more pleased that someone not associated with the literary world enjoys my books because on the whole I feel that I am endeavouring to write for John Doe rather more than for my colleagues. I hope that my newest two titles, in which I take Ghote back to the beginning of his career in the 1960s, Inspector Ghote’s First Case (UK and US) and A Small Case for Inspector Ghote? (UK 20090), have reached you in Texas. But of course that is not necessary because with Amazon anything is available world-wide at the click of a button. — Harry
October 21, 2009 at 7:12 am
Just a fan, writing to tell you how very, very much I enjoy your books. Like millions of others, I am ‘hooked’ on Inspector Ghote and felt quite sad when just recently I finished the last in the series.I have also read your Harriet Martens series and am now working my way through all your other novels.Thank you for giving me many,many hours of pleasure,you are so very clever.
All the best to you,
Robyn Norris,The Central Coast of NSW,Australia.
October 23, 2009 at 9:16 am
Dear Robyn Norris,
All the way from Australia comes a comment of the sort that can only make a writer say ‘So it’s all been worth-while’. When we set up the Web site I did not expect very much, perhaps a few pointings-out of errors and weaknesses. But to get such glowing comments, not just about one story but on almost all of them. It does an 83-year-old, who fears his time has gone, all the good in the world. Thank you, thank you.
Harry
October 6, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Dear Harry,
Sorry to reply so late. I’m very pleased to hear that you remember reviewing me with pleasure all those years ago. I wish I had continued to write with the constancy that you have shown all these years. However, I can say that I hope there will be a new Dowling during the next year. The first chapters are already written.
Let me also say that Amazon has delivered to me here in Italy INSPECTOR GHOTE’S FIRST CASE and I’ve started reading it with great pleasure.
All best wishes,
Gregory
October 5, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Dear Mr Keating,
I’ve just finished reading Writing Crime Fiction – as book as encouraging to the new writer as it is helpful – many thanks! I hope I can live up to the advice it offers.
Cheers,
David
Adelaide
South Australia
October 12, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Delighted to hear you found the book useful and hope there will be news of a published title before long – let me know. Best wishes, Harry
September 29, 2009 at 9:55 am
I sent you an email instead of a Comment (Ihadn’t scrolled far enough down the webpage). Anyway,here goes.
Dear Harry, Our friendship goes back over 50 years to the era of the Bond Minicar (no reverse gear, no driving licence required)and I missed your annual visit this year. Perhaps next year ‘if we’re all spared’ as one’s older relations used to say!
I wish you success with the new book.
Rosalind
October 12, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Thank you for your good wishes and hope we will meet again before too long. Love Harry
September 5, 2009 at 8:09 pm
I’ve just read A SMALL CASE FOR INSPECTOR GHOTE? It is a great pleasure to see Ghote return – and to see him in his earliest cases. He is in fine form in this novel. We follow his thought processes so intimately that it seems to me that we get closer to him than in any of the earlier novels. The chapter at the start of the novel where he brings home the victim’s severed head and has to decide where to hide it is a wonderful example: we learn so much about his home-life and his relationship with his family; it succeeds in being full of tension as well as painfully funny. It’s rare to find humour and tension so beautifully combined but it’s often the hallmark of the Ghote novels.
I am looking forward to reading INSPECTOR GHOTE’S FIRST CASE now (I realise I’m doing this in the wrong order).
September 24, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Dear Gregory,
Comments such as yours make sweet reading especially when they come from someone I vividly remember reviewing with pleasure back in my Times column days. When will there be a new Dowling?
August 29, 2009 at 9:21 am
Harry! Congratulations on the re-emergence of Inspector Ghote in the last two years, it is a great delight to read his earlier cases. Not only were you the successor of Dorothy Sayers as President of the Detection Club but you follow her as a writer of LITERARY detective novels– she would have found great pleasure in reading them.
September 24, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Dear Christopher,
Good to think that you feel the literary tradition is being upheld – perhaps mysteriously Ghote could encounter Lord Peter at some future date.
August 17, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Hello, Harry and Sheila. I like your website. I’m going to put the address in my monthly newsletter which reaches more than 5,000 mystery readers and (occasional) book buyers.
Yours, Otto
September 24, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Dear Otto,
It is very cheering that someone so deeply into crime literature approves of the Web page. Also great that so many more potential readers will be kept up to date with the latest titles.