H. R. F. Keating
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Henry Raymond Fitzwalter Keating (born 31 October 1926) is an English crime fiction writer most notable for his series of novels featuring Inspector Ghote of the Bombay CID.
Contents |
[edit] Life
Henry Raymond Fitzwalter Keating, known as Harry to his family and friends, was born in St. Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex and typed out his first story at the age of eight. He was educated at Merchant Taylor's School in London and later Trinity College, Dublin.[1] In 1956 he moved to London to work as a journalist on the Daily Telegraph newspaper. He was the crime books reviewer for The Times newspaper for fifteen years. He was Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association (CWA) (1970-71), Chairman of the Society of Authors (1983-84) and President of the Detection Club (1985-2000). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He received the George N. Dove Award in 1995. In 1996 the CWA awarded him the Cartier Diamond Dagger for outstanding services to crime literature. Keating is not only a durably successful crime novelist, but he has also written screen-plays, is an accomplished reviewer and wrote an excellent biography of Dame Agatha Christie entitled 'Agatha Christie: First Lady of Crime'.
He lives in London with his wife, the actress Sheila Mitchell.
[edit] Works
[edit] Early novels
Keating's first four novels were published by Gollancz.
With his fifth novel, Death of a Fat God (1963), he moved to Collins Crime Club, with whom he stayed for the next twenty years.
[edit] Inspector Ghote
- For further details of these novels see the main article Inspector Ghote.
Inspector Ganesh Ghote is an inspector in the Mumbai Police who appeared in twenty-four novels. The first was The Perfect Murder (1964), which won a Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award and was nominated for an Edgar Award. It was later made into a film by Merchant Ivory. Ghote's final appearance was in the novel Breaking and Entering (2000).
Keating did not visit India until ten years after he started writing about it.[2]
[edit] Evelyn Hervey
In the mid-eighties Keating published three novels with Weidenefeld under the pseudonym Evelyn Hervey.
[edit] DCI Harriet Martens
Harriet Martens is the protagonist of series of novels comprising The Hard Detective (2000), A Detective in Love (2001), A Detective Under Fire (2002), The Dreaming Detective (2003), Detective at Death's Door (2004), and One Man and His Bomb (due February 2006). She is a Detective Chief Inspector who earns the nickname "The Hard Detective" because of the tough image that she adopts to survive in the masculine world of UK policing. This toughness inspired her to start a "Stop the Rot" campaign that successfully reduced local crime but angered some violent criminals to the extent that they start murdering her officers. In the second book she falls in love with a fellow officer while investigating the murder of the UK's top tennis player. With her job under threat she fights to prove her worth in the third book.
[edit] Other novels
In the 1990s Keating wrote several novels about UK police detectives whose human weaknesses adversely affect their work. The first of these was The Rich Detective (1993) in which Detective Inspector Bill Sylvester of South Mercia Police investigates an anonymous allegation that a local antiques dealer is murder old ladies after persuading them to change their wills in his favour. In A Bad Detective (1996) Detective Sergeant Jack Stallworthy is a corrupt police officer who is planning his retirement to Devon when a businessman offers him an entire tropical island in return for stealing an incriminating file from the Fraud Investigations Office at police headquarters.
In September 1999 Flambard Press published his verse novel Jack, the Lady Killer.
[edit] Non-fiction
His guide to Writing Crime Fiction (1986) was based on his analysis of the development of the genre from the 1920s to the 1990s. It includes guidance on fictional structure, the plot and its characters, and on submitting a script to publishers.
[edit] Summary of works
| Author | Title | Publisher | Year | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keating, H. R. F. | Death and the Visiting Fireman | London: Gollancz | 1959 | |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Zen there was Murder | Gollancz | 1960 | a country house mystery at a Buddhist retreat |
| Keating, H. R. F. | A Rush on the Ultimate | Gollancz | 1961 | |
| Keating, H. R. F. | The Dog it was that Died | Gollancz | 1962 | |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Death of a Fat God | Collins Crime Club | 1963 | |
| Keating, H. R. F. | The Perfect Murder | London: Collins Crime Club | 1964 | Inspector Ghote |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Is Skin Deep Fatal | Collins Crime Club | 1965 | |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Inspector Ghote's Good Crusade | Collins Crime Club | 1966 | Inspector Ghote |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Inspector Ghote Caught in Meshes | Collins Crime Club | 1968 | Inspector Ghote |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Inspector Ghote Hunts the Peacock | Collins Crime Club | 1968 | Inspector Ghote |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Inspector Ghote Plays a Joker | Collins Crime Club | 1969 | Inspector Ghote |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg | Collins Crime Club | 1970 | Inspector Ghote |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Inspector Ghote Goes by Train | Collins Crime Club | 1971 | Inspector Ghote |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart | Collins Crime Club | 1972 | Inspector Ghote |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Bats Fly up for Inspector Ghote | Collins Crime Club | 1974 | Inspector Ghote |
| Keating, H. R. F. | A Remarkable Case of Burglary | Collins Crime Club | 1975 | set in Victorian England |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Murder by Death | Collins Crime Club | 1976 | |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Filmi Filmi Inspector Ghote | Collins Crime Club | 1976 | Inspector Ghote |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Sherlock Holmes: The Man and His World | Thames and Hudson | 1979 | Biography of Holmes, drawing from both the canon and real Victorian history. |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Inspector Ghote Draws a Line | Collins Crime Club | 1979 | Inspector Ghote |
| Keating, H. R. F. | The Murder of a Maharajah | Collins Crime Club | 1980 | Not an Inspector Ghote novel; the only Ghote in the book is his father. |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Go West Inspector Ghote | Collins Crime Club | 1981 | Inspector Ghote |
| Keating, H. R. F. | The Sheriff of Bombay | Collins Crime Club | 1984 | Inspector Ghote |
| Hervey, Evelyn | The Governess | London: Weidenfeld | 1984 | |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Mrs Craggs Crimes Cleaned Up | Enright | 1985 | Emma Craggs |
| Hervey, Evelyn | The Man of Gold | London: Weidenfeld | 1985 | |
| Writing Crime Fiction | 1986 | non-fiction | ||
| Keating, H. R. F. | Under a Monsoon Cloud | Hutchinson | 1986 | |
| Hervey, Evelyn. | Into the Valley of Death | London: Weidenfeld | 1986 | |
| Keating, H. R. F. | The Body in the Billiard Room | Hutchinson | 1987 | |
| Murder Must Appetize | 1987 | non-fiction | ||
| Crime and Mystery: The 100 Best Books | 1987 | non-fiction | ||
| Keating, H. R. F. | Dead on Time | Hutchinson | 1988 | Inspector Ghote |
| The Bedside Companion to Crime | 1989 | non-fiction | ||
| Keating, H. R. F. | Inspector Ghote His Life and Crimes | Hutchinson | 1989 | Inspector Ghote |
| Keating, H. R. F. | The Iciest Sin | Hutchinson | 1990 | |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Inspector Ghote and Some Others | Eurographica | 1991 | Inspector Ghote |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Cheating Death | Hutchinson | 1992 | |
| Keating, H. R. F. | The Rich Detective | London: Macmillan | 1993 | |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Doing Wrong | London: Macmillan | 1994 | |
| The Good Detective | ||||
| The Bad Detective | 1996 | |||
| Asking Questions | ||||
| The Soft Detective | ||||
| Keating, H. R. F. | In Kensington Gardens once… | Hexham: Flambard | 1997 | ISBN 1-873226-23-3 |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Bribery, Corruption Also | London: St. Martin's | 1999 | Inspector Ghote |
| Keating, H. R. F. | 'Rhyme rhymes with Crime (and Something More)' | Crime Time | 1999 | |
| Keating, H. R. F. | Jack, The Lady Killer | Hexham: Flambard | 1999 | a verse novel; ISBN 1-873226-36-5 |
| The Hard Detective | ||||
| Keating, H. R. F. | Breaking and Entering | London: Macmillan | 2000 | ISBN 0-333-90279-3 |
| A Detective in Love | 2001 |
[edit] References
- ^ H.R.F. Keating
- ^ Who's who in Steamy East and related fiction (Google Cached version of 30 June 2006) - which references Meera Tamaya H.R.F. Keating: Post-Colonial Detection (A Critical Study) Bowling Green (OH): Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1993: "Keating wrote the first nine Ghote stories before his first visit to the country -- and having been there he found it more difficult to write" (page 23).
