GOWDA KNOWS

Hot Stage, the third book in Anita Nair's Inspector Gowda mystery series, is here

- Aditya Mani Jha

HOT STAGE A Borei Gowda novel by Anita Nair HARPERCOLLINS ₹499; 444 pages

If you're a Sherlock Holmes fan, you'll remember the passage from 'The Greek Interpreter' where Sherlock describes his elder brother Mycroft-supposedly, a greater deductive mind. But the man had "no ambition and no energy" to follow up on the leads his great mind opened up. This Sherlock/ Mycroft distinction is also, in a way, the difference between detective and police work. The latter is a considerably larger skill-set that goes beyond the cold precision of 'pure' deductive reasoning.