Appointment in Calcutta by Elliot Tokson

Indiana Jones meets the Maltese Falcon. This is the second in a trilogy starring British P.I., Alec Cavender. I have yet to read the first or the third yet so I can’t compare them. Elliot Tokson wrote seven books. The first three being the Cavender series which I guess didn’t take off for him, so he dropped it. There wasn’t a lot of reviews or info about the series but the ones I did find were just a couple stars. But are the masses ever right?

We start off in the early 1900’s in Calcutta, India. Cavender has been hired by the IRB, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a real-life organization who wanted Ireland to be separate from the UK. Cavender himself is an ex-military British national so right off, strange bedfellows. Cavender is there to do a job and doesn’t care much about the politics behind it. Very cool. His contact to the IRB is a short and stocky, albeit sexy, Irish lass named Rose. Once again, I appreciate the writer’s choices. Rose tells Cavender that she needs him to go to Calcutta for the release of Irish national and ex-British military man, Major McLaughlin. The two had served together before the turn of the century.

The Major has been in Indian prison for the last 16 years for a massacre of Sikhs in the city of Taxila, Pakistan. He was just following orders, but the British government made him their scapegoat. During the time at Taxila the Major “came across” some ancient scrolls legend to be a draft for Homer’s Iliad with handwritten notes in the margin by Alexander the Great. He promised to donate them to the IRB so they could sell them and buy guns. Hence why they hired Cavender to make sure the Major gets back to Ireland safely.

Also in the mix is fat Greek book collector, a married rich Russian couple book collectors and some very angry Sikhs who want their scrolls back. Not to mention an ambitious British police investigator who smells something rotten going on. Obviously, we love books around here so if the plot of the story involves procuring some much sought after book, we are all in. More private detectives hunting down lost books please.

There is a lot of action, double crossing, political red herrings, sex, guns and books. Are the scrolls real? Who’s hiding something? Who’s working with who? The talk was hard-boiled. Cavender’s attitude is all business with a tiny heart of gold. No blowing down enemies carelessly. It’s bad for business. The setting is grimy. All the worst that Calcutta has to offer but we also get train rides, archaic plane fights, forgotten temples and horse rides through the countryside. I’m a sucker for settings in the East, especially one that takes place in the early 1900’s.

Damn the Goodreaders, this book gets five stars. I will definitely be hunting down the other two in the series.

Fawcett Gold Medal 1979

\\\\\\\\\Review by Nick Anderson

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