The Mystery of the Fortress and other stories by Saradindu Bandyopadhyay

I managed to get hold of the elusive "Mystery of the Fortress", an English translation of Saradindu Bandyopadhyay's stories about his favorite creation Byomkesh Bakshi. Originally written in Bengali this book enumerates 5 different stories, each a puzzling mystery one after the other. The translation has been done by Mr. Shankar Sen, and I must admit he has done a fine job of it. After a few disaster translations of Saradindu Bandyopadhyay's works like "Rhythm of Riddles" I was afraid that these fine stories would leave an indelible bad impression on the readers mind due to sub par translation.

It's been two years since I last read a story about the Seeker of truth, I hope I don't have to wait another two years to get hold of another Byomkesh book.

Following the old tradition of my blog, I'm going to do capsule reviews of the quintet.

The Invisible Triangle - A really short story of a murder of a married woman, who is an intelligent, independent business woman and has only a formal relationship with her impudent husband. The identity of the murderer is no secret but Byomkesh has to prove how the murder was done. An average read by any stretch of the imagination, good characters, good build up but a disappointing end.

The Rhythm of Riddles: Three Byomkesh Bakshi Mysteries

Our Favorite Bengali detective is back, the good people at Puffin have reprinted three of his stories in English for us non Bengalis. The book has a forward by Film director Dibakar Banarjee and has been translated in English from Bengali by Arunava Sinha. As the title suggests the book has three detective stories starring  Byomkesh Bakshi and his faithful sidekick Ajit. Please see Capsule review of the three stories below:

The Rhythm of Riddles aka Paheli Gatha- While Byomkesh is away on business, a man living on the ground floor of their rented accommodation is murdered, Ajit and a few acquaintances are playing bridge on the first floor of the same house and witness a man draped in a brown shawl running away from the scene of the crime, unfortunately Ajit is also wearing a brown shawl and becomes a suspect. When Byomkesh returns he is infuriated on finding out that there has been a murder right under his nose and his best friend is being maliciously accused by the Police, Byomkesh starts investigating and discovers that the victim might have deserved his untimely end.

The Man in a Red Coat and other Byomkesh Bakshi stories by Saradindhu Bandyopadhyay

I have polished yet another set of Byomkesh Bakshi stories, please see a short write up on all the stories below.

Raktomukhi Neela aka The Deadly Diamond - An occult blue diamond has been stolen from a King, the King wants it back at any cost and hires Byomkesh to retrieve it. A decent short story to open the anthology with, although the way Byomkesh is able to get the diamond in the end from a hardened criminal looked a bit flimsy.

Seemonto Heera aka The Hidden Heirloom - Another story about a stolen diamond, there is no mystery here as to who stole it but the task given to Byomkesh is to retrieve the heirloom. Byomkesh has to search for the diamond in the thief's abode and the location of the diamond is not much of a mystery but the cat and mouse game between Byomkesh and Digindranarayn Roy, the person who stole and then hid the diamond is very interesting. The way Roy constantly tortures Byomkesh is hilarious and also Roy manages to outsmart Byomkesh more then once in this tale of the hidden diamond

The Menagerie And Other Byomkesh Bakshi Mysteries by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay

A few weeks ago I did the review of Picture Imperfect and other Byomkesh Bakshi Mysteries by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay as part of the Global Reading challenge 2012. This led to the discovery of a good Indian author with nice and easy to read mysteries. I had of course heard of the Byomkesh Bakshi TV series which aired on Doordarshan back in the 90's, but never had the privilege of watching the exploits of  Byomkesh on TV.

The Menagerie and Other Byomkesh Bakshi Mysteries are set in Post Independence Bengal as opposed to Picture Imperfect and other Byomkesh Bakshi Mysteries which was set in Pre Independence Bengal. I'm going to do capsule reviews of the 4 stories from The Menagerie like I did for Picture Imperfect. So, did Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay did better then his last outing? or our famous Bengali detective got lost in translation?

Picture Imperfect and other Byomkesh Bakshi Mysteries by Saradindu Bandyopadhyay

Byomkesh Bakshi was a popular TV series in the early 1990's which aired on Doordarshan, having never watched the show and hearing many encomiums about it, I picked up the book on which the show is based. now you might ask why would I not just watch the TV show instead of reading the book? very candidly speaking I have  entered a few reading challenges this year that require me to read a mystery from Asia or your home state/country. Also I thought it would give me the opportunity to analyse Indian mystery writing to its European and American counterparts.

The stories were was originally written in Bengali and have been translated in English. Since the book consists of multiple stories, I'm going to write short capsule reviews of each one.