Customer Reviews

Death in Kashmir

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When my mother said this was the best book she had ever read I couldn't believe her and
decided to read it for myself. I was instantly taken to Kashmir and discovered how
fantastic this unknown place sounded. It was the middle of summer and the writing was so
detailed that I had shivers running up my spine. This was one of those books that I just
wished would never end. I felt as though I was part of the story. When I was done with
this book I said to my mom," why don't People write books like this anymore? Have
people really become that dependent on violence and gore that they miss out on all the
good books?" And mom said, "that is why I saved this book. I am glad I did cause
nothing that even compared to this has come along since!"

Orphaned Sarah Parrish has travelled to India at the behest of her aunt to live for while, this is on the cusp of the transfer of India from British Rule in 1948.

Sarah goes up to Kashmir skiing with a party of other English and while there meets Janet who turns out to be a secret agent with a message. Janet is being stalked and wants to get out of Kashmir, someone will be sent to get her out but she doesn't know if she will be able to get out before she is killed, so she passes on a message to Sarah.

After Janet mysteriously dies Sarah does not tell anyone what she knows, but several months later she receives a letter from Janet's lawyers with a lease to a boat in Kashmir provided and a note from Janet asking her to stay there. Sarah knows whatever message she wants to pass on is on that boat and so she returns with friends to Kashmir but doesn't tell anyone what purpose it is for.

Meantime Sarah has been interested in the gorgeous but mysterious Charles Mallory. He is not interested in any women having a gorgeous fiancee at home, it seems anyway. However he does end up kissing her, and then turning up in Kashmir as well. It turns out that Charles has a secret he doesn't want known, and Sarah must trust someone to help her find the message Janet left, and also to protect her from the other possible enemies including Helen Warrender and Mir.

Lots of possibilities of problems and some creepy moments of people standing in shadowed doorways or intruding on black nights. Nice and suspenseful

Loved the characters, and in this I really enjoyed the period speak and drama. The heroine, Sarah, was feisty and in keeping with her time, and there was a nice turn in romance.

This is one of my most loved books. It's true that I have read deeper books with more substance, even in the mystery genre. But M.M. Kaye wrote a top notch mystery for her time. She truly transports the reader to Kashmir, I could feel the house boat rocking as I was turning the pages. The ending came as a complete surprise and was absolutely stunning. Yes, it is a light novel, but hey, isn't it entertainment we want from mysteries?

I love M. M. Kaye's mysteries, set in exotic locales. They bring back that time in British history when so much of the world was theirs. All the usual British characters show up in these books. Tourist or army types seeing the sights, acting mysterious, whispering in the night. I just love the feel of these classics, they always entertain and make you wish you were there.

M. M. Kaye is my favorite author, and "Death in Kashmir" is her best mystery. The atmosphere she creates is incredible and top-notch; I literally felt that I was there experiencing it all with our spunky heroine. This is a wonderful, atmospheric, period-piece work of fiction - not to be missed by devotees of Kaye!

As a life-long mystery reader, these mysteries by M. M. Kaye
are outstanding. Those who are critical or disinterested in what some may call a "light" mystery should consider the time in which they were written. The historical time period in her books is very real - names of places, spellings, the turn of a phrase, the cultural references all speak to history. The language is rich and the dialogue is audible. Take a turn in history with the atmosphere of the British Empire's influence and occupation (whether you agree or not) and suspend your 2002 little grey cells.

Beautifully written and evocative of their exotic settings, M. M. Kaye's mysteries are simply the best.

Kaye goes boring sometimes more often that not, actually. Here she keeps on describing the basic scenery with great detail which after a time gets boring. She did the same thing in Far Pavilions. Where page after page give vivid description of the Afghan bore, sorry I mean war! But the last few pages are quite enjoyable - when the real villain is revealed. Inadequate and the plot also seemed far-fetched, though the same genre is still being written about and seen on TV! The Russian Menace

Death In Berlin is so much better!

Death in Kashmir: A Mystery M.M.Kaye; a lovely story set immediately post WWII. Spies and intrigue beset a young woman on a skiing holiday in Kashmir. Exceptional descriptions of the scenery and culture of the region offset a bit of a hohum James-Bondish spy story. Kaye obviously loves the region (she was born and grew up in British controlled India) and it shows in her writing. Very enjoyable...

No one captures the restless sadness of a passing era better than M.M. Kaye. The fleeting jollities of society suggest all that's impermanent in the human condition.

Which doesn't stop us from laughing at the witty sparring and catty gossip perpetually present among Kaye's characters.

The story opens in 1947 in the mountains above the Vale of Kashmir. It's the last meeting of the Ski Club of India. The Raj is about to end, with the British scheduled to leave India the following year.

Sarah Parrish is one of thirty some skiers from all parts of India. As befits a heroine of this period, she's young, well connected, extremely pretty and quietly brave.

As a first ominous note, an expert skier has a fatal "accident" on a trail. Then, in the middle of the night, Sarah sees a masked figure breaking into a bathroom. She goes out to warn the occupant of the adjoining room, the niece of the dead skier. This is just the beginning of Sarah's adventures. The niece turns out to be a Secret Service agent in terror of her life. She has no one to turn to but Sarah.

The story portrays Kashmir in two seasons: winter with its violent snowstorms, and summer when the British rent houseboats on the picturesque Dahl Lake.

Of course there's a romance. As Sarah's troubles multiply, she gets entangled with a handsome, aloof, polo-playing captain whose role is suitably mysterious.

This mystery, though well done, is not my favorite M.M. Kaye. I prefer personally motivated murders to the casualties of espionage. But the reader who enjoys a good spy story will find this one replete with suspiciously eccentric characters, coded messages cleverly conveyed and secret meetings fraught with danger.