Shampa Roy’s Stroke of Death is a historical mystery set in colonial-era India that balances history and suspense equally well and delivers to its readers a novel that is delightful and intelligent without faltering at the level of either plot or characterisation.
Death comes calling
The events in Stroke of Death unfold in Rajapur, a small village in Bengal, in 1904. The novel opens with the death of Sarla, a young maid who works in the Rajbari. In a village where this is the first incident of its kind, daroga Bansidhar finds himself out of his depth when it comes to investigating the murder. Luckily for him, he has help in the form of his childhood friend, Inspector Dhananjoy Lahiri, who is visiting Rajapur after a gap of many years. As Dhanajoy becomes embroiled in this case on the behest of Bansidhar, Roy takes her readers on a thrilling ride full of various suspects, red herrings and clues that keep one turning the pages to reach the solution of this puzzle.
The suspects, who mostly include the inhabitants of the Rajbari, are as varied as Radharani Debi, the widowed Thankurani and her relatives such as her husband’s nephew Sukanta and niece Usha, her cousin Sushila Sundari and her husband Rakhal babu, the family’s cook Kamini, their security guard Ramhari lathiyal, along with the ascetic Nityanand who has been living with them. As the novel progresses, Dhananjoy and Bansidhar follow the trail of clues and sift through facts and fiction to discover the motive and the culprit behind this brutal act of murder.
This entire investigation unravels against the backdrop of the blossoming patriotic fervour while trouble brews on the horizon about Lord Curzon’s plan to partition Bengal, because of which, in the words of Dananjoy’s British superior officer, “even the lugubrious Bengalis seem to have been shaken out of their usual torpor.” The use of this tumultuous time as the background, aided by how Roy manages to evoke a sense of time and place through her descriptions, adds a layer of authenticity to the novel. Her use of Bengali words such as pukur, sheuli, hotobhagi etc add a distinctive flavour to the narrative and also helps create a sharper picture of the life and times without ever threatening to overpower the main story.
Another sphere where the novel shines is characterisation. Inspector Dhananjoy, for instance, is well-rounded and he never comes across as a cardboard character, placed there merely to solve the crime. His mixed feelings when he returns to the village after several years away, his reactions upon visiting the places that have bitter-sweet memories attached to them, and his warm relationship with his friend Bansidhar and his boudi make him a living-breathing character. He has a certain Holmesian flair for detection and fans of the British detective might be able to find parallels between his methods and Holmes’ at certain places.
Bansidhar is not someone the reader will forget in a jiffy, despite his being cast in the role of the traditional sidekick. In fact, all the other characters too manage to leave an impression on the reader’s mind, even when they don’t play a large part in the novel.
Women in crime fiction
In the Afterword, Roy writes that the seed of the novel came from her research on Bengali crime writings, particularly the ones which included crime against women and that this story “is inspired by the buried real-life accounts of those forgotten, often silenced women.” To her credit, Roy manages to create not one or two but multiple strong female characters in the novel. Be it Sarla, the widowed maid who isn’t afraid to go after her happiness or be it the Thakurani who has single-handedly taken control of the entire Rajbari after her husband’s death, these women are not (merely) victims.
The novel also manages to break the stereotypical portrayal of relationships between women as rivals or agents of patriarchy. This can be seen in the friendship between the Thakurani and the cook Kamini as well as the relationship of care and friendship that exists between Sarla and Haridasi, who was once the mistress of Sarla’s husband. Such inclusions are a breath of fresh air and play a big role in making the novel stand out from its counterparts. Roy also dextrously weaves into her narrative a thread about the condition of women and the gradual changes that seem to be making way in their lives. Another interesting aspect of the novel is the inclusion of the meye goyenda – the female detective – who is sent undercover in the Rajbari by Dhananjoy to pry open its secrets.
The struggle to find that golden mean is very real when writing a historical mystery – there’s always a chance of over- (or under-) doing it. In this regard, Roy has done a fine job in her maiden outing. I hope that she will create further adventures for this duo and take her readers along.
Stroke of Death, Shampa Roy, Hachette India.
