Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukerjee

Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukherjee --- 333 pages including Author's Note and Acknowledgements.

India in 1921, although still under colonial rule, is inexorably slipping out of the hands of its erstwhile British masters, as more and more Indians of all castes rally to the Independence movement of Mahatma Ghandi and its nonviolent noncooperation resistance.

Inspector Sam Wyndham of the British Imperial Police is also losing his battle with the opium addiction that is his legacy from the physical and mental injuries he suffered in the Great War. He spends more and more nights stupefying himself in Calcutta's opium dens, and his days desperately trying to carry on with his duties while his life goes to pieces.

When Sam and his loyal sergeant "Surrender-not" Banerjee are assigned to investigate the grisly murder of a native nurse at the military hospital at Barrackpore, he is stunned at his first sight of the body. The woman has been stabbed twice in the chest, and both her eyes gouged out. Just the night before, Sam saw the body of a Chinese man with exactly the same mutilations. Unfortunately Sam can't tell his superiors about the first corpse, because he stumbled over it as he was escaping from a police raid on an opium den; revealing his presence there would expose his addiction and cost him his job.

With no one he can trust except Surrender-Not, Sam must keep his personal demons from spiraling out of control long enough to solve this deadly riddle. And, if that's not enough, the pending visit of the Prince of Wales to dedicate the Victoria Monument in Calcutta is sparking massive nonviolent demonstrations by the Mahatma's Congress Party, in support of Indian independence. The government is reactig to the demonstrations with threats of violent retaliation, and Surrender-not is suffering from conflicting loyalties to his job and his people.

A well-plotted murder mystery with great characters, set during a crucial period of Anglo-Indian history, with consequences that are still playing out in the relations between West and East.

The child of Indian immigrants, Abit Mukherjee grew up in western Scotland, and discovered crime fiction in his teens. He worked for some years in financial services in London, and wrote in his spare time. His first novel in the Wyndham/Banerjee series, A Rising Man,  won the Harvill Secker/Daily Telegraph crime writing competition. On the strength of that he got a contract with a book publisher, and has gone on to publish two more critically acclaimed novels in the series, A Necessary Evil and Smoke and Ashes.  A fourth novel featuring Sam Wyndham and Surrender-not Banerjee, Death in the East, is scheduled for release next year.

Click HERE to read the * review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Mystery Tribune.

Click HERE to read the review from Criminal Element.com.

Click HERE to read the review from Crime Fiction Lover.com.

A Necessary Evil by Abir Mukherjee

A Necessary Evil: A Novel by Abir Mukherjee --- 374 pages, including Author's Note and Acknowledgements.

The sequel to Mukherjee's debut novel, A Rising Man, picks up almost immediately where the previous book left off.

Calcutta, India, 1920. The British are trying to persuade the princes of India's royal houses to join the Chamber of Princes—an attempt to use the upper classes of native society against the growing discontent and  demands for India's independence rapidly spreading through the growing middle class of educated Indians fed up with British exploitation and racism.

Crown Prince Adhir of the wealthy and influential princedom of Sambalpore vehemently opposes joining the Chamber. He has his own ambitious plans for modernizing  Sambalpore. During an assembly of princes in Calcutta, Prince Adhir asks to meet with Sergeant Banerjee, an old school friend from Harrow. He tells Banerjee that he's found three notes warning of a plot to kill him, in his private chambers in the Palace in Sambalpore.

Banerjee and Captain Sam Wyndham, formerly of Scotland Yard and now with the Imperial Police in Calcutta, are with Prince Adhir when he’s assassinated by a Hindu holy man in the middle of a religious procession. Wyndham and the Sergeant go to Sambalpore, ostensibly to attend Adhir's funeral, but really they are trying to discover who was behind the plot to murder the Prince. This is not an easy task, since technically the Imperial Police have no authority in Sambalpore, and many of the men of the court refuse to cooperate with a British officer. When Wyndham wants to interview the royal women, Adhir's stepmothers, and his wife, Wyndham find the royal women live secluded from contact with men outside their family. They cannot even speak directly with a man without causing a serious scandal. The only exception seems to be the First Maharani, or wife of the ruling Maharaja. She visits the local temple almost daily, and is willing to talk to Sam. But much of what she says is couched in seeming riddles.

Who killed Prince Adhir, and why? Political and personal intrigues mean Wyndham and Banerjee have too many suspects and not enough time, for the murders are multiplying, and the clues lead in too many directions. And, he suspects, those in power would prefer not to know than to deal with the embarrassing repercussions of these crimes.

Click HERE to read the * review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Criminal Element.com.

Click HERE to read the review from Crime Fiction Lover.com.

Click HERE to read the review from the Los Angeles Review of Books.

A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee

A Rising Man: A Novel by Amir Mukherjee --- 386 pages with Acknowledgements.

Abir Mukherjee’s debut novel, A Rising Man, is a murder mystery set in Calcutta in 1919, during the waning days of the British Raj.  The author's family immigrated from Calcutta to Scotland when he was a child, but made regular trips home to visit. Mukherjee spent twenty years working in finance and writing as a hobby. He entered his manuscript in the Harvill Secker/Daily Telegraph competition and won. He now has begun a second career as a novelist. 

A Rising Man is narrated by former Scotland Yard detective  and World War I veteran Sam Wyndham, who arrives in Calcutta in 1919 to join the Imperial Police. Wyndham is desperate for a fresh start and a chance to put painful memories behind him. But he's scarcely settled into his new job and made the acquaintance of his team when he is confronted with his first big case: solving the brutal murder of a senior British official. His superiors believe that native "terrorists" (ie., advocates for Indian independence) are responsible for Alexander MacAuley's death. MacAuley's body was found with his throat cut, dumped in a sewer behind a brothel in "Black Town," (the native quarter). A note stuffed into the corpse's mouth warns the British to leave India or else. 

The British will tolerate no dissent against their heavy-handed rule, because how else can a little over one hundred thousand white colonists maintain control over millions of native Indians? The system is rife with injustice, and seething with rebellion, and the situation is only made worse when news comes of a British massacre of unarmed protesters at Amritsar. 

The powerful security forces soon settle on a native scapegoat  for MacCauley's murder, but Sam is unconvinced. He's found no evidence that links Benoy Sen with the murder.  As a result, he finds himself embroiled not only in the politics of Empire but in the cutthroat rivalries within the British expatriate community. Mukherjee has produced a  well researched and vivid historical setting, a complex plot that keeps the reader guessing, and vividly drawn characters.  The unflinching acknowledgement of the rank injustices of colonialism is balanced by touches of mordant humor.

Mukherjee now has a contract to produce a series of mysteries featuring Sam Wyndham and his Bengali Sergeant, "Surrender-not" Banerjee. 

Click HERE for a review from Mystery Tribune.com.

Click HERE for an interview with the author from Indian Express.com.

Click HERE for a * review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE for a review from Criminal Element.com.