It’s very unusual for me to read a mid-series book but circumstances caused me to pick up Abir Mukherjee’s third novel in his critically acclaimed Sam Wyndham series without having read the other two. Wyndham is a Captain in the Calcutta Police Force in the years after the First World War. It certainly kicks off with a pacy punch with the drug-addled Calcutta Police force Captain coming round during a raid on an opium den. In his bid to escape detection he encounters a mutilated corpse. The novel is set in the run up to Christmas 1921, with Wyndham, hiding his addiction caused by trauma from the Great War, and his Indian Sergeant known as “Surrender-not” Bannerjee investigating some strangely linked murders during the build up to a Royal visit from the Prince Of Wales.

What lifts this novel above standard adventure-fiction fare is both the strong sense of location and the historical setting of a Calcutta preoccupied with the non-violent, non-co-operation policies advocated by Gandhi which is causing serious malfunctions in the running of the Empire. The political situation creates dilemmas for both British and Indian characters which adds to the richness of the plot.

Mukherjee’s two main characters have been obviously well established in the first two novels allowing him to focus on the historical detail and in bringing 1920’s Calcutta to life. It is a fascinating time in the history of India as Imperialism looks increasingly inappropriate in the aftermath of the War and the events here are based on actual happenings married with the thriller writer’s licence for creating an involving and plausible tale out of these. It works well as a stand-alone novel but for those who, like me, find chronology important in reading books from a series are probably advised to start with Mukherjee’s debut “A Rising Man” which won the Historical Dagger at the 2017 Crime Writer’s Awards. The second in the series was shortlisted for the same award this year but ultimately lost out to “Nucleus” by Rory Clements. This is quality adventure fiction.

Smoke And Ashes was published in hardback in June 2018 by Harvill Secker. Many thanks to Nudge and the publishers for the review copy.  An edited version of this review can be found on the Nudge website.