Reading Blood Moon Over Bengal by Morag McKendrick Pippin was a schizophrenic experience for me. On one hand, a well-plotted mystery and the author’s adept handling of a time period and setting unusual in romances set the stage for an absorbing historical romantic suspense. On the other, caricatures rather than characters run the show, led by a self-centred heroine and cliched, foul-mannered hero. My intitial admiration curdled into tight-lipped determination to hang on to the end for the sake of the resolution to the mystery.
1932. When British heiress Elizabeth Mainwarring pilots a decrepit plane onto a military parade ground in Calcutta (Bengal, India) Major Nigel Covington-Singh is struck by her beauty and the regrettable fact that she is the daughter of his regiment’s commanding officer.
Even the fact that his father is the Maharaja of Kashmir and that he himself excels at his chosen profession does not make Nigel’s half-Indian, half-British heritage acceptable in colonial society. Elizabeth has more modern ideas, but convincing others that race is immaterial in matters of the heart becomes harder than ever as a series of gruesome murders increase racial tensions.
Morag McKendrick Pippin uses her considerable storytelling ability to good effect in her debut book. At its best, Blood Moon Over Bengal offers both absorbing drama and nicely honed suspense. My only quibble in regards to the latter is that after much has been made of the latest technical equipment and information-gathering from the four corners of the world, the method in which the mystery is actually solved is lame and unworthy of the well-plotted and well-paced intrigue. The author nevertheless displays one of her key strengths in infusing the resulting scene with drama that keeps the suspense afloat. Drawing on its setting and period, the mystery plot is integral to the story and a provides plenty of opportunities for social commentary, too. More about that later.
The descriptions of the British haunts in Calcutta brings the colonial setting to entertaining life. The author’s choice of emphasis does tend to conjure up a world where all anybody does all day long is imbibe alcohol and engage in extra-marital or otherwise secret affairs. British slang is thrown about with every breath the characters take, whatever the age, race, sex, or nationality of the person. At one point, Elizabeth and her best friend Fiona can hardly speak a sentence without calling each other “old thing”. If local idioms or slang are used, they eluded me entirely. (In other respects, apart from some stilted dialogue due to clunky exposition, men constantly raking their fingers through their hair in frustration or staring at women’s breasts, and repetitious sexual imagery, the prose is remarkably polished and confident for a debut book.)
While Blood Moon over Bengal is steeped in evocative detail about everything from period fashions to plants and the weather, the novel aims to steer clear of non-discriminating nostalgia for the Raj. An impatient determination on the author’s part not to put up with nonsense flavours the racial discourse, and it is perhaps forgiveable that this refusal to whitewash or sweep issues under the carpet in parts results in rather heavyhanded execution. While racial prejudices on the British side are well-illustrated and permeate the book – slurs such as wog, eight-anna, and cheechee are used judicially to showcase it – the lack of nuance in its strength or expression became a problem for me. Together with the author’s predilection for stereotyping this oversimplification/exaggeration helped reduce potentially interestingly flawed portraits to black and white caricatures. Except for the heroine and hero, their two sidekicks, and the Maharani, who are effortlessly broad-minded, everybody else thinks, feels, and reacts alike. Characters have energy but remain static and nobody really grows, develops, or learns anything.
In one scene the author’s judgment does falter quite startlingly. In an outburst of aggression Nigel identifies civilised restraint with British culture and primitive violence with his Indian heritage: “I am too Anglo to carve an unarmed man to shreds with my kukri [knife]. Insult Miss Mainwarring again, and I will indulge in a more primitive practice my Indian half is not above carrying out.” Additionally, of the only two Indian female characters in Blood Moon Over Bengal, one is a cardboard example of the Evil Other Woman, and the second is forced, through her torn loyalties, into the role of victim. While a few male full-blooded Indians show up in the story, they are barely given any voice. The Indian independence movement is alluded to but it does not assume any prominence in the story.
The issue of characterisation brings me to one of my biggest problems with Blood Moon Over Bengal: its treatment of women. It seems every female who is not friendly with or impressed by the heroine is called whore, tart, cow, shrew, harlot, slag, biddy, cat, bint, or bitch – frequently by the hero and heroine. I lost count of how many are described as catty, intolerant, shallow, and snobbish. (Namecalling where male characters are concerned is confined to “cad”.) Meanwhile, the heroine wears shorts to a polo match, makes assignations with male strangers after dark, sleeps with a man she is not sure wants, scorns the customs, conventions, and traditions of the society in which she is a temporary guest, downs alcohol as if her liver is made of immortal material, insists on lunching in a disreputable area where she proceeds to laugh at her companions’ discomfort about a nearby brothel (Blood Moon Over Bengal takes place in 1932), and in one instance says “I’d like to give the stupid cow a jolly good slap across her smug face”. Unlike the aforementioned women, we are told she is simply being admirably bold, unconventional, and brave. While Elizabeth does display moments of pluck, in perilous situations this woman who successfully pilots a wreck of an airplane in chapter one goes limp with paralysis and has to be rescued at the crucial moment.
Details of women’s clothing and makeup, frequently including brand names, form a major part of the visual props the author itemizes. On a historical level, I found these notes interesting but as a part of the characterizations they began to grate. It is constantly implied that other women, especially non-friendy acquaintances, never look half as splendid as Elizabeth. The one well-dressed exception is a character whose portrayal is among the most damning in the book. Even in the case of her close friend, “Elizabeth couldn’t help wondering why Fiona either possessed exquisite taste in her clothing selections or roared off on peculiar tangents, bent on curdling one’s digestion”. In Elizabeth Mainwarring we have a heroine who must be admired at the expense of every woman in her vicinity. Only the hero’s mother escapes unfavourable comparison, but even she is made to pay the heroine’s specialness due tribute: the Maharani quickly invites Elizabeth to “’cease this ‘ma’am’ and ‘Royal Highness’ nonsense’” and call her “’Vanessa’”.
Anachronistic attitudes are evident in conversation topics (money, prostitution, bathing – anything goes) and behaviour of the sexes toward each other (little to distinguish it from the 21st century). Apart from Elizabeth’s wardrobe not much marks her as a pre-WWII woman. A belated concern about the risk of becoming pregnant and the desire for a permanent relationship in the form of marriage were hardly unique to the 1930s. Moreover, after spouting thoroughly modern ideas about bi-racial relationships and ridiculing the narrow-mindedness and racism of British society in Calcutta, she is shocked – shocked, I tell you! – to discover that her half-Indian, Kashmiri lover is, in fact, Hindu. The instant she learns this she begins to (figuratively) wring her hands in despair about the cultural obstacles in her and Nigel’s path, and becomes reluctant to commit to a future with him. This plot point could have contributed to Elizabeth’s growth but instead of teaching Elizabeth something about self-awareness or humility, for example, it is simply used as an obstacle to keep the lovers apart.
Then again, Elizabeth seems to misplace her brain any time she runs into Nigel. She wants Nigel to tell her that he is in love with her, refusing to confess her own love first because that would be clingy behaviour. When he does, she resents him for not expressing his love in a manner she finds acceptable. When he proposes, she immediately assumes that he wants to marry her only because they slept together, and calls him a cad. These two jump to conclusions every chance they get and relish making assumptions about each other. If not for Nigel’s apologies (exasperatingly, Elizabeth is made out to be the injured one) and sorting out of their poor communication styles, Elizabeth would be on her way to her newly inherited sheep station in New Zealand, intent on treasuring her self-image as a broken-hearted martyr.
Why does Nigel fall in love with Elizabeth? Your guess is as good as mine. He just is, and he would die for her. Of course, as the person assigned to lead the investigation of the Calcutta murders he also knows which suspect is not guilty. How? Well, he assures his investigative team, “my instincts tell me he is not our murderer”. Okay, then. The best I can say for him is that except where Elizabeth is concerned he usually thinks – and yes, despite his dependence on his “instincts” he does know how to reason - before he acts. Unsurprisingly, however, it is not his investigative techniques or deductions that lead to the capture of the killer/s.
The vagueness of Nigel’s background and his thinly fleshed out, cliched personality disappointed me. But much worse was his hypocrisy. A sexually sophisticated man, he looks forward to teaching Elizabeth everything about the delights of sex. Every time he looks at Elizabeth his eyes are described as either “smouldering” or “glowing”, and while still barely acquainted with each other he boldly conveys his lustful feelings for her in his expression, in his speech, and in his actions. Yet when he receives advances from the other women who pursue him, he behaves like a boor, treating them with open contempt, calling one a tart to her face, the other a shrew. Charming. He is actually joined by most men in Blood Moon Over Bengal in this behaviour; it is typical of how they talk about, address, and think about women.
Both the hero and heroine reason that keeping vital information from each other is noble. In Nigel’s case, Elizabeth must not know that the murderer/s seem to have targeted her next because he refuses to have her be frightened. In Elizabeth’s case, Nigel must never, ever know that she loves him before he has declared his love, because saying it first would show her as the kind of clingy woman she despises (which is why she must never, ever call him on the phone either). This couple's romance left me highly doubtful about their ability to survive a lifetime together.
As Blood Moon Over Bengal unfolded I had to look harder and harder for one likeable character. Fiona came close. Cheerful and sensible, she and an older woman, a plantation owner, are the two voices of reason and perspective in the book. But in the end Fiona, too, lost some of her decency. Although other readers may feel the circumstances warrant it, I could not swallow how she laughs “in delight”, uttering “’I do love a bloodthirsty man!’” after somebody expresses a wish to “see how far the slag will stretch on the rack”. (Similarly disturbing to me, after the father of a suspected rape victim says, in an outpouring of understandably grief-struck rage, “Do you realise how anxious I am to crush that craven bastard’s throat”, he adds “I get hard thinking about it”.)
My final verdict about Blood Moon Over Bengal calls to mind Longfellow’s (?) poem about the little girl with the curl: When she was good, she was very good indeed, but when she was bad...
In Blood Moon Over Bengal author Morag McKendrick Pippin has created a sense of time and place that drew me in as if I was there. Much more successfully than Meredith Duran’s otherwise excellent The Duke Of Shadows, which also features a half-Indian, half-British hero, she places the realities of racial prejudice at the front and centre of the story. There is no doubt in my mind that McKendrick Pippin can write. When my reading enjoyment was ruined by off-putting characterizations including an I’m-SO-the-fairest-of-them-all heroine and a bigoted male protagonist it was the author’s storytelling verve and talent for plotting an intriguing mystery that prevented the book from being tossed aside unfinished. With a radically different set of characters and some grey between all the black and white, Blood Moon Over Bengal could have been a winner.
Books of related interest: In fiction, M.M. Kaye's romantic suspense novels set in 1940s India are classics of the genre. I can wholeheartedly recommend both Death In Kashmir (the revised edition of Death Walks In Kashmir) and Death In The Andamans (the revised edition of Night On The Island). The author belonged to the Raj, and her love and inside knowledge of India and its British residents permeates the stories. For a non-fictional account, Women Of The Raj: The Mothers, Wives, and Daughters of the British Empire in India provides a more nuanced portrait of its subject than Blood Moon Over Bengal.
