Inspector Chopra and the Million-Dollar Motor Car

by Vaseem Khan

[Mystereity Reviews]

I needed an Indian author for one of the r/CozyMystery Book Bingo squares and someone suggested this one. It's novella length, so I was able to read it in an hour or so, but for such a short book, it packed an entertaining plot. Set in Mumbai, India, Chopra is a police inspector who had to retire due to a heart issue but is unwilling to give up the job he loved, he opened a detective agency that runs out of the restaurant he owns. One morning he is visited by a car dealership employee asking Chopra to investigate the theft of a $4 million dollar Mercedes that the dealership procured and customized as a birthday present for the son of a local gangster . If the car isn't found in time to be presented to the ganster's son, there will be trouble.

Despite being just over a hundred pages, this was well plotted and entertaining and it was easy to fall into the book. Chopra is a pragmatic sort of investigator and I loved that he has a baby elephant as a sidekick (that car wash had me giggling!) As other reviewers have said, it wasn't difficult to figure out how the car was stolen, but the culprit turned out to be a surprise. While it was a bare-bones investigation, it was interesting to see how Chopra tracked down every clue and I loved "seeing" the sights and sounds of Mumbai.