Veteran crime writer HRF Keating passed away on Sunday 27 March 2011, aged 84. The author of over 50 novels, he will be best remembered for his long-running and much-adored Inspector Ghote series, set in India. The first book, The Perfect Murder, won him the CWA Gold Dagger for Fiction in 1964, and he went on to publish another 21 titles in the series before sending Ghote into retirement in 2000. However, such was the demand for more Ghote that Keating revisited his character for his last two published novels, Inspector Ghote’s First Case and A Small Case for Inspector Ghote?, both prequels to the series and proudly published by Allison & Busby.

He was not only loved by his readers but revered by his peers and was presented with the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to crime writing. Second only to Agatha Christie, he was the longest-standing president of the elite Detection Club and for his 80 birthday his fellow members honoured him with a special collection of their own previously unseen short stories, the anthology A Verdict of Us All.

He leaves behind his wife, actress Sheila Mitchell, who encouraged him to write his first detective novel, and four children.

Read his obituary in The Guardian, written by fellow Allison & Busby author Mike Ripley.