Published 2018

Summary

When Crown Prince Adhir, the Yuvraj of Sambalpore was assassinated in Calcutta in front of Sgt. Banerjee and Captain Sam Wyndham, finding his murderer became personal to the officers. Soon the search took them to the prince’s wealthy kingdom as they tried to untangle the threads behind the murder.  In Sambalpore the officers find an abundance of suspects – many whom they cannot question because of their positions in the royal court. The only person Wyndham is convinced is 100% innocent is the one person the Sambalpore police have arrested for the crime.

My Thoughts

This is a very well-paced, brilliantly crafted story. The mystery really has everything one could hope for. There is an abundance of potential motives and a fabulous pool of suspects. Everyone from residents and employees of the palace to the wealthy British businessmen and maybe even the Viceroy may have had motives. There are some great twists and turns, an abundance of clues and a plethora of red herrings. However, even with all the twists, the author has played fair and it is still entirely possible for the reader to deduce what has happened.

I truly appreciate Mukherjee’s writing. He paints such vivid portraits of the place and time. I can visualize everything from the lavish trains and crowded train stations to the jungle camps. It’s one of those books where I don’t want to miss a word because he seems to choose each word with such care.

What Else I Liked

• I appreciate the developing relationship between Sgt. Banerjee and Capt. Wyndham. Though I suspect their relationship can only grow so far, it is clear that Wyndham trusts Banerjee’s opinions, observations, and skills. It is often Sgt. Banerjee who makes suggestions that lead to breakthroughs.

• For the time period, Captain Wyndham is in many ways enlightened for a British official in India. However, in this book I am glad to see that he is beginning to recognize his own racist attitudes – though he certainly doesn’t see them as something that he needs to correct. He has no problem with a white man dating an Indian woman, but absolutely doesn’t approve of an Indian man having a relationship with a white woman. There are also occasions when he admits he doesn’t like being told no by an Indian of any rank. At this point, he simply observes that it is interesting that he should feel this way.

• The book is clearly very well-researched. If there were anachronisms, they didn’t stand out.

What I didn’t like

Honestly, there is nothing I didn’t like.

There were scenes that I didn’t enjoy because of the content – I don’t like hunting and I don’t like gory murders. But it’s hard to see how a story in a Princely State in 1920 wouldn’t involve a tiger hunt and the hunt was crucial to revealing more about several of the characters and moving the storyline forward. The gruesome deaths also served a purpose. Neither the hunt nor the deaths were gratuitous.

And normally I don’t love a troubled lead detective. I find the divorced alcoholic detective trope just gets in the way of my enjoying a mystery because I prefer to leave angst for novels. Mysteries are my escape. At least at this time, Wyndham’s addiction is not so overwhelming that it drags down the story.

Potential Triggers or Upsetting Events

• Drug Addiction/drug use
• Suicide
• Racism/colonial mindsets
• Hunting
• Executions – fairly graphic and brutal

Rating 5/5

About the Author

Abir Mukherjee a best selling author who has won several awards for his work including the Hervill Secker Crime Writing Prize, the CWA Historical Dagger, the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize and the CWA Sapere Books Historical Dagger. He was raised in Scotland and now lives with his family in England.

Learn more about Abir and his work at https://abirmukherjee.com

Cover photo from Goodreads.