It wasn't hard to figure out the killer at the end, nor even the details about how the victim was killed, but it didn't matter. Mukherjee told such a good story that it held my attention right until the end anyway. ( )

Captain Sam Wyndham has at last conceded that his opium addiction is starting to run out of control, and is beginning to affect his work. He has, therefore, agreed to attempt a cure, going into an early version of rehab in a remote monastery in Assam. He is sceptical about how effective this might be, but has reached such a pitch of despair that he is willing to attempt anything. As he arrives at the railway station near the monastery, he glimpses someone that is vaguely familiar. This is not merely unexpected, but utterly bizarre, as he had believed that the person whom he is sure he has recognised had died years ago, before the First World War.

Sam goes through a painful rehabilitation which, mercifully, the author skates over fairly lightly. His fellow patients (inmates?) are a mixed bunch, including several Europeans. One of them, who is nearing the end of his spell there and who is deemed to be virtually cured, goes missing one evening and does not return. His body is found a couple of days later several miles away. As the senior monk officiating over the retreat is aware of Wyndham’s profession, he asks him to conduct a brief review of the death to see if any explanation can be found. Wyndham is convinced that he has been murdered. Meanwhile, as the final stage of his rehab, Wyndham is asked to complete his stay at the house of a local surveyor. The surveyor introduces Wyndham into what passes for a social circle there, in which he once again meets the sinister spectre from his pasty.

Mukherjee delivers the story excellently. He excels at striking a heady blend between convincing and engrossing plots and strong historical and geographical context. The book is set in the 1920s, during the period in which Mahatma Gandhi’s campaign for Indian independence is gaining serious traction. Even Wyndham, who has not always been the most self-aware of characters, realises that some degree of change in the way that Indian society and government is organised is unavoidable.

This is another very welcome addition to a strong series. ( )

Abir Mukherjee's Wyndham & Banerjee historical mystery series has been one that I've greatly enjoyed, but I opened Death in the East with a bit of trepidation. You see, I have few "hot buttons" when it comes to my reading, but I'd rather not spend time with recurring characters who are alcoholics or drug addicts. Sam Wyndham's opium addiction had certainly worn the bloom off the rose of my reading enjoyment, and I was afraid Death in the East was going to be more of the same.

Hallelujah, it wasn't!

To be honest, I'm more a fan of Sergeant Surendranath Banerjee than I am of Sam Wyndham. (The lazy Brits call the sergeant "Surrender-Not".) Banerjee doesn't appear until the end of the book, but what an ending he helps bring about!

The chapters occurring in 1905 London put readers in contact with a young, still idealistic Wyndham, one of those annoying men who always give more credence to attractive women. (Do pretty females lie? Never! How could you think such a thing?) The London sections began to drag a bit, so I was happy when all the necessary backstory was given so the focus could remain in India.

So far, I've made it sound as though I don't particularly like Sam Wyndham, and that's not true. He has one quote in Death in the East that I love:

"I've never understood what drives the powerful to oppress the weak, or what need the many have to harass those different from them. Maybe it was just easier: to blame someone else, someone different, for all the shit that happened to you. Someone who couldn't answer back and point out the obvious: that your troubles were mostly caused by people who looked like you, not people who were different. Maybe that was why I'd always been on the side of the underdog. Some called it contrarian. I just thought of it as being decent."


This is something that I could have said about myself, but what gives this quote even more emphasis is how Surendranath Banerjee turns it on its head at the end of the book. With flashes of humor and a very different perspective, Banerjee arrives to save the day. I love how this young man has grown over the course of this series. Wyndham always used to have the upper hand in their partnership, but Banerjee's confidence and abilities have grown, and he can easily stand shoulder to shoulder with the captain.

Death in the East is a very satisfying story, from Wyndham's experiences with drug rehabilitation all the way to the conclusion of an event that has bedeviled the captain since 1905. Moreover, I am really looking forward to the next book in this series. I do believe that Surendranath Banerjee has some surprises in store for all of us, and I can't wait to find out what they are. ( )

Captain Wyndham is fighting his opium habit at an ashram in the hills when he is drawn into a murder investigation. The story moves between his current situation and his memories of a case in London when he was a beginning constable. A tricky ending.

I've enjoyed the previous three Sam Wyndham novels. They have been an eye-opening trip into a country and an era I know shamefully little about: rich, colorful, conflicted, dangerous, outrageous and difficult. This one... not so much.

As Sam sweats and pukes his way through withdrawal in an Assamese compound, the story splits into alternating segments - memories from 1905 when he was a green constable faced with the fatal battering of a lover in Whitechapel (hello, Ripper Street...), to the British colony of Jatinga in 1922 and its greedy, brutal overlord - someone who happens to be from the Whitechapel past. And who (sigh) is of course to married to a woman. Who, of course, Sam is a sucker for. (And just when we'd been relieved of Annie Grant for a time...) Both story segments involve the old "locked room murder" setup, which I've always found tricksy and boring... Mukherjee admits he just wanted to see if he could pull one off (let alone two). There are strange infodump conversations, where people who have told lies to everyone else suddenly unburden themselves at length to Wyndham, for no apparent reason. There are the requisite derring-do episodes of falling through windows into abandoned buildings, losing a gun, climbing a drainpipe, etc. It largely felt formulaic, even lazy. There are repeated conversations about burn marks, about thunderstorms, and if he mentions it once he mentions it half a dozen times that there is no electricity in Jatinga. And he really needs a no-nonsense editor: there are many sentences going something like: "I stubbed out my cigarette, made a mental note to ask him... headed back inside, just as the maid returned with sandwiches... which were terrible, and then we called in the next suspect." Abir! We do NOT need every breath and step and stray thought! No wonder this thing is over 400 pages long!

All that said, there are flashes of what make this series worth trying. Surendranath appears, and is given authority over the investigation. The political winds in India are changing, and this gentle, intelligent, thoughtful Indian is paying close attention. At last, he firmly yet almost affectionately puts Sam Wyndham in his place - or rather points out the falseness of his and the general British place in India, and concludes: "You call yourself my friend, yet you don't even make the effort to call me by my real name." Wyndham is properly abashed. And for the rest of the book, "Surrender-Not" becomes Suren.

Abir: can you please make up an actual flesh and blood woman who is not gorgeous, immaculately dressed, obscenely rich, selfish and obnoxious? Bessie Drummond was a start, but you killed her almost immediately - too smart for her own good, maybe? Please cut all the cigarette-lighting and stubbing and drink-pouring, and walking from room to room or down stairs or across streets. Work on that for your next one and I'll read it to see how you're doing. Thank you. ( )