It is the eighteenth novel in the Inspector Ghote series but the nineteenth book to be published as an anthology of short stories was released the year before.

Additional Secretary for Department for Home Affairs Mr Z. R. Mistry requests Inspector Ghote's assistance on a strictly private matter.

Unfortunately Mr Mistry has not selected Ghote for his zeal or powers of deduction but because he is "not in a position to make trouble".

Thrust into a tangle of illegal activities including blackmail and murder, Ghote finds himself balanced on a knife-edge between right and wrong as he faces his greatest ever test as a detective and a person.

[1] The title is explained early in the novel by the character Z. R. Mistry: "Blackmail," he said, "Perhaps the most hateful crime, short of murder, that is to be found.

Feeling responsible Dr Commissariat's fate, Ghote tells Mr Mistry that Daruwala is dead but not who murdered her.

Inspector Arjun Singh of Crime Branch investigates the murder, reported by Ghote's anonymous phone call.

Tabloid newspaper, Gup Shup, has blackmailed people into paying for an entry in Indians of Merit and Distinction.

Enquiries in England reveal that Kersasp did not raise the funds to start his newspaper by running a magazine there, as he claimed.

Then Inspector Singh is transferred to the Vigilance Branch of Bombay Police (Internal Affairs) and the Daruwala murder case abandoned.

Ghote is called to the assistant commissioners office where he learns Chiplunkar has purchased Daruwala's flat as a hideout.

Z. R. Mistry: A senior government official holding the post of Additional Secretary at the Department for Home Affairs and a prominent member of the Parsi community.

She learned to blackmail at a very early age and continued to do so, amassing a fortune that allowed her to live better than Mr Mistry, a senior government official.

Burjor Pipewalla: A tax accountant whose files have been stolen by Miss Daruwala and who has subsequently submitted to blackmail by her in order to protect his clients.

Shiv Chand: Office manager at the tabloid newspaper Gup Shup who attempts to blackmail a Bombay concert pianist.

Claims to have run a similar newspaper in the United Kingdom but in fact acquired the money to start his business from a robbery and murder.

Blackmailed wealthy people into buying entries in the never published vanity publication Indians of Merit and Distinction under the threat of seeing their scandals exposed in Gup Shup.