Leslie Forbes (1953–2016)

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this book. It started strongly, with a murder outside a communal home, which spurs the main character – Claire, a forensic photographer – to seek out her family history and an elusive green poppy on the Indian subcontinent.

The story itself is confusing, with a plethora of characters (all somehow related), a plotline that takes Claire through Calcutta and Darjeeling and on an adventurous trek into Tibet, and a dizzying array of subplots and show more subterfuges. Only adding to the confusion are the unpredictable switches from third person to first person and the discordant flashbacks, not to mention the constantly changing locales. But I have to applaud the intense description of the trek across Bhutan and Tibet to reach Nepal, and I must admit that one of the most intriguing parts of the narrative is the long middle section set in 19th century India, told mainly through journal entries and flashbacks. Still, it was quite impossible to follow or make much sense of it all, and I was flabbergasted when the identity of Jack the Ripper was revealed to be one of Claire’s ancestors. It feels like an opium haze of a journey, leaving the reader with no true sense of what is real and what is hallucination. show less

I got this through a virtual bookbox, intrigued by the blurb.

This is not your typical mystery. Roz heads to India after receiving a distressing letter from her estranged sister. It seems that Miranda's new husband, Prosper, is mixed up in the death of his first wife, along with a hijra (eunuchs dressed as women). She arrives in Bombay with her BBC presscard, something which gives her almost unquestioned access.

Roz is a prickly woman, caught between two worlds, connected to India through her show more parents, and Scotland through her mother, she now lives in London, not quite fitting in anywhere. There is a lot of tension between her and her younger half-sister, who is legitimate, not a product of a long-running and destructive affair as she is herself. Roz runs in, like a bull in a china shop, determined to uncover the connections between the dead hijras, Prosper's first wife, even when it puts people, including herself, in danger.

Roz has invaluable help from her highly educated taxi driver, one who likes to quote literature and saves her neck more than once. She has connections from the world of broadcasting, which help her get closer to Prosper's own filmset. India itself is as much of a character as Roz, with the storm clouds collecting, everyone waiting for the monsoon rains to finally fall. While they bring destruction, washing away the informal settlements, they also bring renewal.

The tension in the first half of the novel starts to lose its bite. The author brings in many sub-threads, which in coming together, actually drag the narrative down. This is not to say that Forbes is a bad writer, rather that she has tried to throw to many ingredients into the pot, such as Bollywood films, mental illness, art and the forgery of works of art, disfunctional families and the weather. Taken as a whole, the reader becomes distracted.

I would still recommend Bombay Ice for a read, the mystery in itself is well-constructed. show less

This book has great breadth and I think it could be read on many levels.
For one it is a mystery of a murder and an exploration of a complex family history. For another it is a testimony on man's abuse to the earth whether in the name of science or personal gain.

Clair Fleetwood is a forensic photographer, who inherits an old house in London's East End. Because of her almost nomadic childhood she yearns to put down roots and relishes the exploration of her family connection to Magda show more Ironstone (born Fleetwood) who founded the house and had very close connection to the family business in India.
She starts up a garden in the backyard of the old house with the help of her friend Sally, but Sally is murdered in the same backyard under mysterious circumstances.
Driven by grief and curiosity Claire ends up on an expedition in the remote parts of Tibet, looking for a green poppy that was described at length in some of Magda's papers and was coveted for its miraculous medicinal properties.

On this journey Claire discovers much more than she had bargained for. show less

A mystery thriller that is also a meditation on chaos. This is a novel that rewards your attention in spite of its weaknesses.