Reviews with content warning for Infertility - The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra

Reviews tagging 'Infertility'

The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan

5 reviews

onegalonelife27's review against another edition

funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

On the day Inspector Chopra is set to retire he finds himself the owner of a baby elephant and a murder of a poor boy. Finding himself lost at this new stage in life, he decides to take on the boy's murder and the calf and an intriguing mystery story ensues.

I felt like the mystery side of the story was very well put together, having some great details and twists! And some of the ways the trail dips and leads to into some hilarious, some intense situations was wonderful!

I did myself a bit confused on the setting, really the time when the story takes place. It introduces Chopra on a “mobile phone” yet then talks about Bombay riots which took place between 1992-1993, so at the end I settled on late 90s early 2000s. Personally, I prefer having setting established early on so I don’t have to mentally erase my idea of the setting again and again.

There’s also the problem between Chopra and his wife-often called Poppy. They actually really cute couple-being opposites attract with years of loyalty between the two. However, Chopra decides to keep his investigating a secret, naturally worrying his wife. And there’s plenty of time when he could be honest with what he’s doing, though he’d get in trouble for doing something so dangerous, but decides to not worry her. Which of course, just makes her fear the worst in him. She is also facing a turning point in her life making for more domestic drama to follow which is gripping. This miscommunication often led me to hoping that the baby elephant would make Chopra fall into a cow pie because of how he was treating Poppy.

Speaking of the little calf, his name is Ganesh and he is a delight. At first, Chopra takes the calf with him reluctantly due to no pet rule at his apartment and figuring out how to care for him. Leading to a few shenanigans, yet in time the two become close and leads to a sweet relationship and adds to the mystery as well.

Despite its flaws, I did enjoy this book and the note it ends on makes me want to read of more Inspector Chopra and Ganesh’s investigations. So I recommend this if you want a book that straddles the line of lighthearted and good mystery.

Content Warnings

katjacatbeans's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

This is pretty cute! It's more of a police procedural than I was expecting. Something about the writing & story made me keep thinking of The Coroner's Lunch, and they are definitely not the same. A couple similarities, but I think I just like Coroner's Lunch better and wanted Chopra's story to be the same.

One thing I really really love is how well the story handles

Poppy & Ashwin's infertility, and the sensitivity taken with showing how each of them mourns the loss of raising children, but each bears that grief and disappointment in a way that places no weight on the other person. That seems unique and really touching to me.

One thing I was disappointed by is the relative lack of

baby Ganesh in the action of the story. He doesn't get enough scenting l screen time! The scene with Poppy & Ganesh watching tv and eating banana chips is truly precious, and i thought that would be a jumping off point for more involvement in the story but it never really comes to fruition.

I think I expected it to be more of a buddy-cop scenario and it just isn't.

Lastly, I was pretty taken aback by the epilogue's revelation re: Ashwin's dream of

opening a cops-only restaurant, where policemen can just be themselves. I'm pretty ACAB so this didn't sit well with me, even though some pains are taken to explain that cops in India are treated differently in public than they are in USA.

It was a jarring surprise, and one that I didn't feel was hinted at, at all, throughout the book - so it feels a little unnecessary.

Content Warnings

bamboopanda's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

I did not expect how much I enjoyed this story. I especially enjoyed Poppy and their marriage in general. The case was as dangerous as it should be and Ganesh is just the cutest thing.

Content Warnings

fromjuliereads's review

Go to review page

I skim read massive chunks of this to see if it was worth it to keep going. But for me, it just isn't. I literally only care about the elephant at this point and he's constantly forgotten in the story.
It's all about how this Inspector cannot let things go, keeps working on a case even though he is retired - which couldn't that be illegal? And there are huge boring sections about retirement, backstory, elephant info, and infertility. So much discussion of how they wished they could have kids and couldn't. But don't worry - a cousin has a daughter who got pregnant. You can immediately tell where that's going - they are going to take the baby and raise it I guess.
Sure there is a murder with a mystery element to it. But I just didn't care. There was no connection to any of the characters, little character development in terms of showing the reader who the characters are. Just not for me.

Content Warnings

shelbydong's review

Go to review page

adventurous lighthearted mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

More of a 3.5 star. I thought the story line was great, a little slow at first but definitely picked up. I felt like Poppy’s story could have been taken out, it didn’t really do anything for the book. It did make me a little sad the treatment of the animals in the book, as well as just the overall setting of India. The author talks a lot about the poverty of India which I think is good to read, especially not knowing anything about India myself. But it was sad to read the lifestyle that Indians have.
Overall, I will definitely read the second book in this series!

Content Warnings

More...