[2] The novel's title refers to Inspector Ghote's determination to catch the killer, motivated partly by his admiration for the victim's acts of charity, which becomes his crusade.
At the Masters Foundation for the Care of Juvenile Vagrants Ghote meets two urchins who answer to names which they have chosen for themselves from American movies: "Edward G. Robinson" and "Tarzan".
The cook tells him that Frank Masters ate the same food as the orphans, which was of poor quality except for a beef curry prepared under Doctor Diana Uplea's supervision.
At this time Dr Upleigh discovered the notorious criminal Amahred Singh was hanging around the foundation and threatened him with the police.
Under threat of arrest for destroying evidence Carstairs tells Ghote that he dropped the bottle out of shock, having realised that the only key for the dispensary is in his charge.
Using a ride in a police wagon as a bribe, Ghote discovers that the man was Amahred Singh, who has a gold smuggling racket which the boys help with.
Ghote gives chase and captures Chatterjee who admits entering the dispensary but denies killing Frank Masters.
Ghote is painfully aware that this would be acceptable to his superiors and is faced with a difficult dilemma when "Edward G." claims to have seen Singh take poison from the jar in the dispensary.
Ghote resists the temptation to accept the boy's offer immediately, and hopes to use the threat of eyewitness testimony to extract information from Amahred Singh.
The next day, after getting the money out of his savings account, Ghote again visits "Tarzan's" family and discovers Singh keeping watch on them.
Ghote finds Dr Uplea, who tells him that Masters was a bad administrator who would not accept advice and a poor judge of character who allowed himself to be fooled by Amahred Singh.
Hearing this causes Ghote to regret giving his refrigerator money to the fisher family and he hurries away in hope of retrieving it.
The argument ends when Ghote tells Protima that the family used the money to celebrate the village's holy day and they both begin laughing.
Ghote explains that "Edward G." told Chatterjee that Frank Masters had lost his money and was smuggling gold to support the foundation.
Ghote reveals that Frank Masters became sick because of an ordinary emetic which allowed Dr Uplea to access the dispensary legitimately and administer the poison instead of a cure.
Dr Uplea confesses that this is the truth and that she killed Masters because he intended to abandon the foundation and give his money to Tibetan refugees instead.
"Edward G." stresses that street children need to know what is going on around them, as it is a survival skill, and praises Ghote's cleverness in catching Dr Uplea.
"Edward G. Robinson": Disfigured street urchin who chose his name from the actor in American movies and a friend of "Tarzan".
Amahred Singh: Charming and roguish Sikh the Bombay police badly want to put in prison, but who they have no incriminating evidence to convict on.
"The Inspector is a fine comic character" SUNDAY TIMES [3] "One of the more convincing characters in modern contemporary mystery fiction" NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW [3] Audiofilemagazine.com has a positive review of the BBC Audiobooks America 2002 edition of Inspector Ghote's Good Crusade, read by Sam Dastor, on its website.
Inspector Ghote's Good Crusade did not itself win any awards, although this novel is the immediate sequel to The Perfect Murder, which won a Crime Writer's Association Gold Dagger.