[Review] Abir Mukherjee: 'Smoke and Ashes'

I've been waiting for this one. The first two thrillers by Abir Mukherjee, 'A Rising Man' and 'A Necessary Evil' were so very good that I was wondering if the writer could keep writing stories that were as engrossing as his first two books. Well, I can reveal here that he not only managed to do that seemingly effortlessly, but he surpassed even my high expectations.

Some time later he and his trusted junior officer, Sergeant 'Surrender-not' Banerjee, are sent to investigate the murder of a French nurse and they discover that the woman suffered the same sort of injuries as the man Wyndham had found earlier.

So, how do these seemingly unrated victims fit into the grand scheme of things? The investigation of Wyndham and Banerjee is constantly in peril because of political machinations. It also doesn't help that the Prince of Wales is expected to arrive shortly on his Tour of India and the city of Calcutta is in turmoil because men like Chittaranjan Das, Subhas Bose and other nationalists from the Indian Congress party prepare to peacefully protest against that visit.

While he's hunting the killer in the hope to stop further bloodshed, Wyndham is also tasked to squelch the mass protests in the streets of Calcutta.

Mukherjee hasn't made it easy for himself, weaving historical facts into his fictional murder story. But he managed to pull it off with panache. Highly recommended.