I HAVE the honour humbly to inform my readers that, after prolonged consumption of midnight oil, I succeeded in completing this imposing society novel, which is now, by the indulgence of my friends and kind fathers, the honble publishers, laid at their feet.
Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., Calcutta University.
A Bayard From Bengal
Being some account of the Magnificent and Spanking Career of Chunder Bindabun Bhosh, Esq., B.A., Cambridge [The Whole Edited and Revised By F. Anstey]
It's 1936, Calcutta. A fraudster has swindled tea planters and investors in a scam known as The Great Tea Estate Swindle. The police investigation is going nowhere and a tea planter employs Jonathan Prosper to find the swindler. The search takes Prosper out of Calcutta and into an unlikely world seemingly involving a Rajah and his secretary and Prime Minister, and smugglers and spies.
There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better. No lesser crime than murder will suffice.
S S Van Dine
Twenty Rules for writing Detective Stories. Rule 7
