Inspector Ghote's First Case - Characters in "Inspector Ghote's First Case"

Characters in "Inspector Ghote's First Case"

Inspector Ganesh Ghote: A hard-working policeman, recently promoted to the rank of Inspector. He is married to Protima Ghote who is expecting their first child and lives in Bombay, India.

Protima Ghote: Ganesh Ghote's wife of less than a year at the start of the novel. She is heavily pregnant with the couple's first child. She is also a university graduate of English Literature. She is particularly fond of the works of Shakespeare and wants badly to see a film of Hamlet that is being shown in Bombay.

Robert Dawkins: A British civil servant who remained in India after independence and his own retirement, believing he would have a better quality of life. He is an old friend of Sir Rustum Engineer and Peter Watson, through whom he met future wife Iris Petersham.

Iris Dawkins: Born Iris Mountford, daughter of Sir and Lady Mountford, then orphaned at an early age. While staying with the British Resident in India, she was seduced by the son of the Maharaja, who was the same age as her, and gave birth to a son who was put up for adoption. She was later returned to the United Kingdom and adopted by the Petershams, who were poor relations to her own family. When she returned to India she met and married Robert Dawkins.

Sir Rustom Engineer: Retired Police Commissioner of Bombay Police. A friend of Robert Dawkins from the days before Indian independence. Sir Rustom responds to a letter from Robert Dawkins asking for help by sending Inspector Ghote to investigate the death of Iris Dawkins unofficially.

Inspector "Bully Boy" Darrani: A rival of Inspector Ghote's from police training college. Darrani is a very forceful individual who seems to have a closed mind on nearly any topic once he has expressed an opinion on it. Darrani graduated at the top of his class from police training college by blackmailing Ghote into underperforming in the final exams, with the knowledge that Ghote had been disgraced and sent back from a police youth conference held in Moscow after Ghote enabled a smuggler to bring Levis jeans (which were forbidden in the Soviet Union) into the country.