Suspense, Intrigue, and Social Commentary: Criminal Underbelly of Urban India

Ambai’s The Death of a Sarus Crane is a modest collection of four short stories—comprising what the cover claims to be Sudha Gupta’s Adventures in Detection. The generic trappings of detective fiction—a sleuth, a client, an expert mentor (Vidyasagar Rawte), a law enforcement officer (Govind Shelke), a crime or murder and a plot moving relentlessly towards a resolution—form a palpable framework for the action. Yet the investigations of the female detective can barely keep up with the masquerade that highlights recurrent social concerns—life in disparate pockets of Mumbai, issues of exclusion and marginality, migrant communities and divergent lives.