The Burning Ghats is Abir Mukherjee’s sixth offering in his Wyndham-and-Banerjee series. A police procedural and a historical whodunit, it can surprisingly be enjoyed as a stand-alone novel. Mukherjee, an award-winning British Indian crime novelist from Scotland now resides in England.
It is Calcutta in the 1920’s. India is still under British rule. The independence movement to liberate the country from Britain is continuing to gather momentum. British presence is strong in Calcutta, especially in the police force.
The story starts with a dead man’s body being found in the riverfront cremation ground. The man, whose throat has been slit, turns out to be none other than a wealthy Indian business tycoon, who’s also a philanthropist and generally well-liked. Who killed him? How did his body get there? Captain Sam Wyndham, a British police officer, now held in disfavor by his superiors, is astonished when he’s assigned the high-profile case.
Quite by accident, Sam meets a glamorous British film star, Estelle Morgan, who enchants him. Although on her way to Hollywood to seek better roles, she happens to be using a layover in Calcutta to take part in the shooting of an Indian film. Sam enjoys flirting with her. Before long, Sam will also meet her American agent, an overbearing man, who puzzles him.
Meanwhile, Sam’s one-time associate and former police sergeant, Suren Banerjee, returns to Calcutta. After being falsely accused of a crime several years ago, the London-educated, upper-class Brahmin had fled to Europe and spent time there.
Suren (Surendranath Banerjee) pays a visit to Sam, with no intention of rejoining law-enforcement. He simply wants to report a missing person: Dolly, the daughter of his father’s brother, an avant garde photographer. Sam and Suren go to visit Dotty’s studio only to find it ransacked. What’s more, they’re attacked in the dark by a stranger, although both are able to escape without being harmed. Sam and Suren are now forced to collaborate. Before long, a link will be found between the two cases. One more murder will be committed.
Although the plot is slow-moving, the sights, sounds and complexities of Calcutta absorb the reader and constitute one of the book’s best features. The leading man, Sam, is well-developed, but the female characters are less believable. Suren, given his complex background, deserves a little more space. Despite these shortcomings, the reader will eagerly await more exploits of Sam and Suren.
Bharti Kirchner is the author of nine novels and four cookbooks, her latest being Murder at Jaipur: A Maya Mallick Mystery.
