When, in 1932, Saradindu Bandhypadyay decided to try his hand at detective fiction, despised in Bengali literary circles for its frivolity, he did not expect Byomkesh Bakshi to become one of the most popular and enduring creations in Indian literature. Inspired by Conan Doyle's Holmes and Chesterton's Father Brown, Byomkesh's appeal as an inquisitor, a seeker after truth, has earned him a following over generations of readers.

In this collection of stories, all set in Calcutta in the mid-twentieth century, the devious investigator will face six new cases that will put all his deductive capacity and cunning to the test: from the investigation of a too natural death, to the search from a valuable missing necklace, to the fulfillment of a close friend's dying wish. Solving a murder in a house with too many suspects, his attempts to spoil the sinister plans of a cruel opportunist, and a mystery with a supernatural twist in rural Bengal, make up these new mysteries that allow us to superbly delve into a country and a time as exotic as it is unknown to the western reader.