This is the fourth in an excellent series from this author of the Wyndham and Banergee series set in the Raj era of India.
Here the plot links the time of a young Sam Wyndham as a constable in the East End who has to solve the murder of a young woman who he himself had once courted- Bessie Drummond. The setting of 1905 London is well described and we come to meet the gangs of the time - the Spiller Brothers and particularly Jeremiah Caine a Rackman type of landlord who was Bessie's boss. Wyndham it appears has no fear of underground crime and he bravely gets to the heart of nasty events.
The ensuing years have seen him survive WWI lose a wife in death and escape to India where he is now a respected Captain in the Calcutta Force. But he is also an opium addict and the force has recommended he seeks out a 'cure' in the hills if Assam.
But no sooner has he arrived than a ghost from that past time in London reappears and will once again unsettle his life.
The descriptions of the mountains in India and life in the Hindu monastery were wonderful and I felt completely engaged with Wyndham's struggle to overcome addiction (a new slant on police rehabilitation surely!) The symbols, gods, food and local customs are well researched and fit well into the overall plot.
It was a shame his side kick Banerjee -surrender-not, only appears at the end, as they bunce off each other well and solve in somewhat Poirot style on a colonial veranda and club, the mysterious death that completes the circle of retribution in the story.
Wyndham seems to have a soft spot for the ladies and this sometimes clouds his judgement but Banerjee keeps him on the straight and narrow and there looks as if there will be more tales to come from this unusual police pairing. Very enjoyable - no wonder they have won so many awards since their debut for the author. I shall enjoy catching up with the other books in the series.

Absolutely brilliant book. I loved the format with the flashbacks to Sam's time in London. I never realised this was part of a series. I will definitely be checking out the other books. I really enjoyed the political undertones and the way it dealt with domestic abuse as well.

This book is set both India and London. The first part follows the story of Sam Wyndham who in 1905 was a policeman in London, and who discovered the body of a woman he once loved. Simultaneously we follow Sam when he has travelled to India to serve in the force there, but is struggling to overcome an addiction to opium.

The chapters swing between London and the ashram in India, but gradually the stories become intertwined, and as Sam is caught up in another unexplained death, he finds a link to his former friend's death and is determined to see justice done.

The book describes his earlier and later lives very well, and he comes over an as interesting character. We aren't really told how he became an addict, other than he succumbed to the lure of opium almost as soon as he landed in India. The cure he undergoes in the ashram is quite interesting.

The book is pacy, interesting and a good read.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House UK, Vintage Publishing and Harvill Secker for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have loved all of the books in this series but this is by far the best.
As Sam Wyndham travels to Assam to try to overcome his opium addiction he thinks he sees a face from the past….and so the adventure begins.
This is a beautifully written study of friendship and the growing uncertainties that faced India during this time and at the same time is a traditional ‘locked room’ murder mystery.
Sam and Sergeant Banerjee’s relationship is more deeply explored in this book. In previous books Banerjee was displayed as a slight figure of fun and his odd ‘Indian ways’ highlighted for fun – in a way I was uncomfortable about. The cultural divisions between British rule and the local population are more sensitively explored in this book than others, illustrated by the fact that by the end Sam now calls ‘Surrendernot’ by his Indian name Suren. Suren now stands up to Sam and quite rightly points out the casual racism that Sam engages in – and I look forward to watching this relationship develop in further books.
A fascinating read – fantastic descriptions of London and India. And some incredible character developments.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Vintage Publishing for an ARC.

I've already made the acquaintance of Sam Wyndham in the previous three books by Mukherjee, and very good books they are too. Struggling with his opium addiction, Captain Wyndham heads for the hills of Assam. There he is to enter an ashram run by holy man Devraha Swami to try and kick his habit. At a train station, Sam crosses eyes with a man across a platform - a man he last saw years before. A man who tried to kill him.

1905 East London and young constable Sam is involved in a case of murder - the victim is an old girlfriend found dead, brutally beaten, in a locked room.

I really enjoyed the dual storyline in Death in the East. Mukherjee does a great job of creating atmosphere and a sense of time and place, so both London and the hills of Assam are vividly portrayed.

I was disappointed at the start of the book that Sergeant Surrender-Not Bannerjee was left behind in Calcutta but fear not, his presence is required when Sam's opium recovery journey overlaps with a murder...

The relationship between Wyndham and Bannerjee is as complex and satisfying as ever.

A gripping and evocative read, Death in the East is another great entry in the world of historical crime fiction.

Another great book by A.Mukherjee, part of the Captain Wyndham series, but works equally well as a stand alone novel. The book takes us back to events in the East End of London when Wyndham was a young police constable, interspersed with events in rural India. It has a strong sense of place, the characters are all likeable and realistic. It tells us of a development in the relationship between Wyndham and his Indian colleague. It is also more of a who done it than the previous books in the series. I will definitely look out for the next book by this author.

A parallel justice

It is 1922. Captain Sam Wyndham of the Calcutta police goes up country on enforced leave; his objective - to end his opium addiction in an obscure Hindu monastery run by a European convert. Before his arrival he thinks he sees a face from his past in London, the face of a man he has long thought dead, a man who committed a gruesome crime against a woman the young Wyndham had loved.

This is the fourth in Mukherjee’s Calcutta based police series. It runs in two time periods, 1922 in India and 1905 in London. As Sam Wyndham tries to solve his first case in London, the murder of a young woman in an apparently sealed room, he encounters deep prejudice against recent arrivals in the east end, Jewish refugees fleeing from pogroms elsewhere in Europe.

When Wyndham’s suspect from 1905 suddenly dies himself in a sealed room, he suspects murder but cannot solve the crime. Hampered by the memory of his failure in 1905 and by the weakness caused by his addiction, he calls in the help of his friend and ally, Sergeant Banerjee, no longer ‘Surrender-not’, but now simply called by his Indian name, Suren. As Wyndham and Banerjee work together to solve what they suspect is murder, prejudice and racism again raise their heads, not least from Wyndham himself.

Abir Mukherjee has written another good entry in the series, which provides the reader with a skilfully drawn mystery as well as an insight into Imperial days in India filled with colour, drama and the conflicts of the time.

With every novel Abir Mukherjee adds to the readers enjoyment. His characters become more and more fleshed out, the murders more torturous and the villains more dastardly.

What joy!

This is the fourth novel in the series about Captain Wyndham and his career as a policeman in India just after the second world war. In this one he not only tackles his opium addiction and a knotty murder but also a case from his youth. It's deftly handled.

The opening pages are very Edgar Allen Poe. Hugely atmospheric. A delight of a novel.

I often recommend these novels to friends. If I had one criticism, and it is a minor one, there is not enough of Bannerjee.

An excellent story and enjoyable book. The story starts in London in the early 1900’s with a couple of murders and what appears to be a miscarriage of justice. The policeman involved Wyndham is an interesting character with a drug addiction, reminding us that this is not a new problem and that addiction to drugs opium or similar has been with us for years. He travels to Ashram for help with this addiction and I found it very interesting the descriptions of India and the Indian culture and the British living in a foreign country. A really good read linking the incidents and murders in London to going’s on in India. I throughly recommend this book.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Random House UK, Vintage Publishing for an advance copy of Death in the East, the fourth novel to feature Calcutta based detective, Captain Sam Wyndham, set in 1922.

Wyndham gets off the train in Assam on his way to an Shyam in attempt to cure his opium addiction when he sees an unwelcome face from his a past, a man he thought was dead.

I thoroughly enjoyed Death in the East which is the first novel in the series that I have read. I wasn’t sure what to expect as many of the novels set in India that I have read are humorous with an undercurrent of social commentary and somehow I had the feeling that this would be different. There is humour in the dialogue and a fair amount of social commentary but it is a more serious novel without the absurdity.

The plot is clever and interesting. The man Wyndham sees takes his mind back to London in 1905 and the murder of Bessie Drummond. Thus the novel has a dual narrative with current events alternating with flashbacks to 1905. Both are told in the first person from Wyndham’s point of view so the reader gets up close and personal with his thoughts and feelings. The first two thirds of the novel are quite slow as the author deals with the events from 1905 in linear fashion while dealing with Wyndham’s opium withdrawal. Both are quite harrowing and compelling in their own way. The last third deals with the present and follows Wyndham’s sergeant’s investigation of a possible murder. It is here that the novel comes alight. The solution is ingenious, the resolution ambiguous and the dynamic between Wyndham and his sergeant, Surendranath Banerjee, fascinating.

I must admit that I was quite appalled at the casual racism in the novel, not least that the British couldn’t be bothered to pronounce Sergeant Surendranath Banerjee’s name properly and call him Surrender-not. It makes for uncomfortable reading but I understand that Banerjee has changed in this novel and become more assertive, possibly due to Ghandi’s social unrest movement. What is more interesting is that Wyndham considers Banerjee a friend and yet still believes he is superior. He learns some hard lessons in this novel and I will be very interested to read more about this changing dynamic.

Death in the East is a good read that I have no hesitation in recommending.

The fourth book in the series about Sam and Surendranath, colonial policeman in the late Indian Raj. Gandhi has just called off the national strike, and things are changing for the pair. Sam books into an isolated retreat to try and kick his addiction problems, and Surendranath has had some time to deal with the difficult conflict of interest caused by the last case. Whilst it would be nice to think that things have changed to make Britain unrecognisable in over hundred years, but Sam's flashbacks to Whitechapel 1905 are full of antisemitism which recent political party scandals reveal to be all too contemporary. Also a reminder that various recent media trials demonstrated (some) police still took "bungs" from journalists. Nons of this is heavy handed in the book (unlike, I suspect, this review). I'm not a whisky drinker but I like the fact that Mukherjee, a Scot, makes his detective seek our some classy varieties during the case (there are, apparently, many Presbyterian missionaries nearby!).

A nod to the plausibility question:
‘I have noticed,’ said Surrender-not as we walked back up the hill towards the club, ‘that wherever you go, people tend to die.’
‘That’s nonsense.’
‘What about that railway sub-inspector out near Bandel last year? You ask him for a railway timetable and twenty minutes later he’s dead.’
‘he was hit by a train ,’ I said. ‘I don’t see how that was my fault.’
‘I didn’t say it was your fault. Just that people seem to die around you. Remember my paternal grandmother? She died two days after she met you.’
‘She was eighty-nine years old.’
‘And now this fellow, Carter or Caine or whatever his name is. He sees you after seventeen years, and five minutes later he too is dead. You have to admit, it’s curious. I’m thinking I should introduce you to my uncle Pankaj. I’ve never liked him.’
https://www.librarything.com/work/23290214

It’s no real secret that I am a big fan of the Sam Wyndham series as it combines two of my favourite things, murder and history, so when I was given the chance to read the latest instalment I did a little happy dance and I was torn between racing though it in the same way I had done the previous three books or savouring it, knowing that once I had read it, I would have to wait ages for the next one. Once I started reading it, that decision was taken out of my hands and I finished it within a couple of days, followed by the compulsory googling of certain historical events to find out more about them.
Death in the East is a little different from the previous books in the series, in so much as the story goes between London in 1905, when Sam was a new constable in the police force and India in 1922, when he is going through treatment for his opium addiction. Sam’s colleague, Sergeant Surendranath (Surender-not) Banerjee is not with him for this, but when a fellow member of the retreat is found dead in mysterious circumstances, Sam calls for his assistance.
Flitting between Sam’s past and his present gives just that little bit more of an insight into what makes him tick and shows that he has always had a dogged determination to get to the truth rather than taking the easy route to solving a case that was favoured by his superiors. With the mystery of how Bessie was murdered to solve his sense of doing what was right often saw him associating with some of the not so savoury characters of London. What was quite disheartening to see was that over time attitudes towards those we do not know or understand have not really changed. Immigrants and their way of life was feared, and that fear turned to hatred.
The story takes us to a different part of India that is more remote and, in some ways, more stuck in the ways of British rule and sense of entitlement, and not yet really touched by what was happening in other parts of the country. There is a definite shift in Surrender-not’s attitude towards the British and how he is treated by them. He has always taken the sly digs and being taken as a second-class citizen in his own country and his refusal to stop working with the British police even caused a rift with his own family. I think this change is partly due to the fact he has been put in charge of the investigation over Sam and partly to show the changes in India at that time. I for one really liked to see him standing up for himself more and being more assertive – even when he did go a tad overboard at times, which was a reaction to the way he was being dismissed by potential suspects.
For those of you who have survived to the bottom of what is possibly my longest ever review of a book my verdict is the following just in case you were in any doubt…. Death in the East is another absolutely brilliant book and you would be daft not to go out and buy it. For me the series just keeps getting better and better…. And if you haven’t got the first three in the series… why not as you don’t know what you are missing.

Death in the East is the latest book in the Captain Sam Wyndham series by Abir Mukherjee and it is another excellent historical crime novel.

This time Wyndham is recovering from his opium addiction when he thinks he recognises someone from his past who had died 17 years earlier in 1905.

The author interweaves 1905 London and 1922 India to create a locked room mystery that feels like a golden age story and is worthy of being considered as such.

This is an excellent series that is consistently well written and Death in the East is definitely recommended

I originally requested this ARC for review based on 'name dropping' by another author (Vaseem Khan, if anyone is interested), and am very glad that I did. I thought it was terrific!

I had no trouble following the story, despite it apparently being the latest (No 4) in a series. The story is that well written. It's quite long, about 6 hours, and took me awhile to pick through, but I had no issues following along. There are really two stories here (taking place almost 20 years apart) and the connections are very cleverly introduced and wound together. While there's a lot of information that you need to get through to get to the crux of the mystery, it's well worth it.

Calcutta Detective Sam Wyndham has been through the trenches and horrors of WWI and is an opium addict when he arrives at an ashram to begin the cure for his addiction. Whilst he is there, a man is killed by the river, a man who could, in the dark, be mistaken for Sam.

This leads Sam on a convoluted trail of murder, beginning in his past as a young beat officer in Whitechapel, in London, a world away from where he currently finds himself. The past comes back to haunt him at the same time that the British stronghold on India is beginning to shake loose, causing ripples of discontent amongst the natives, and Sam is caught short when his Sergeant, Surrender-Not Banerjee, begins to question both Sam's professional opinions on the case, and whether he is as open-minded as he believes himself to be.

I will definitely be going back to the first book so I can start at the beginning, and keeping an eye out for No 5. Highly recommended!

A brilliant addition to Abir Mukherjee's terrific Captain Sam Wyndham historical series set in the turbulent social and political times of an India struggling to throw off the yoke of British colonial rule in the early 1920s. Here we have a narrative that shifts back and forth in time to 1905, to a younger Sam, a police constable stationed at Whitechapel in London's East End. In 1922, Wyndham is the grip of an opium addiction that he is finally forced to deal with and on the advice of his doctor, he arrives in Assam seeking treatment at a ashram, run by a Hindu holy man and monks, that is known to have some success in dealing with addictions. Sam knows he is going to have to go through hell and he must succeed, they offer only the one opportunity to kick the habit. At the railway station he is startled when he sees a ghost from his past that surely could not be. It is this that brings back his memories of London and Bessie Drummond, a woman he didn't treat well, attacked and later murdered in a locked room within her own home.

This is a East End with its latest influx of Jewish refugees and immigrants, offending English sensibilities by have the nerve to look like one of them. There is anti-immigrant hysteria, whipped up the press, based on blind prejudice, stereotypes and blatant lies. This part of London is desperately impoverished, with its powerful crime brothers, Martin and Wesley Spiller, that locals live in fear of. Initially, the prime suspect is Bessie's violent brute of a husband, but suspicion goes on to fall on a Jewish suspect. Sam harbours doubts but is unable to prevent a terrible miscarriage of justice. In India, Sam finds himself surrounded by an international group of white men looking to throw off their addictions, including the kind and compassionate Jewish Jacob Adler, suffering from a cancerous tumour. Sam becomes drawn to the beautiful Emily Carter who volunteers at the ashram, the wife of the rich and powerful Ronald Carter, who appears to own everything and the premier person of influence in Jatinga, a leading light of the all white British Jatinga Club. Events lead to the arrival of Sergeant Banerjee, leading a possible murder inquiry in a case that is intertwined and connected with Sam and what happened in London in 1905.

This is a atmospheric, beautifully written historical mystery, with a other worldly location in Jatinga, with its ashram, the shocking raining down of suicide birds, fakirs, a place rumoured to be cursed and evil, abounding with passion and rivalries. The British with their petty hierarchies, hypocrisies, and insistence on segregation from the natives, are determined to put down any resistance to their exploitative and murderous rule. They overflow with their unbearable sense of entitlement, the rock solid certainty in their superiority, racist and abusive with a casual and thoughtless abandon. What makes this addition to the series so good is the character development of Banerjee, he has come along in leaps and abounds, acquiring a much warranted confidence, apparent in how he conducts his inquiry.

Banerjee is now more than strong enough to point out Sam's shortcomings as a real friend, opening Sam's eyes to the fact he is just not as liberal as he thinks, that he fails to stand up for Banerjee, and worse, openly urges him to go easy on the British suspects. Sam seriously underestimates Banerjee, a symbolic micro-echo of the troubling relationship between Britain and India. India is inexorably moving towards independence, personified in a Banerjee turning the tables on Sam, a perceptible shift of power in their relationship. Fantastic read that I highly recommend. Many thanks to Random House Vintage for an ARC.

This is I think is the fourth in the series of the Inspector Wyndham and Sergeant Bannerjee series. I haven't read any of the others this being the first I have come across (as a promo in exchange for an honest review)
Told partly in flashback to 1905 when Sam Wyndham is a humble rookie constable in Londons East End ,He catches an immigrant Jew wanted for the murder of an Englishwoman amid a hysterical anti semetic press campaign. He comes to believe the man is innocent and another a rich and connected businessman is involved.Thwarted by is superiors at every turn as they refuse to consider the evidence he has to go against his instincts to try and save an innocent man from hanging..
Amonst the 1905 murders the story jumps forward to 1922 where Wyndham is now an Inspector in India at the start of the Independence movement. Travelling north to a Buddhist Ashram to take the cure for Opium addiction.He glimpses a face from the past or did he imagine it?
Its difficult to describe without giving too much away but this is a great read ,a flawed hero,his Indian sergeant who has started to become interested in Independence ,the snobbery and arrogance of the British ex pats whose treatment of the locals is unbelievable . There follows a mysterious death and this provides the central investigation. Seemingly unsolvable but ultimately Wyndham comes up with an explanation..
I really enjoyed this book,a great evocation of the beginning of the end of the Raj,.Great characters ingenious crimes brutal murders ,racial predjudice anti semitism the gutter press its all there ,The saddest thing is that so much of it is still around.
I will definitely be reading the authors previous novels in the series .Highly recommended.

This is the first book that I have read in this series and I really enjoyed it. I liked the characters and the fact that the story went between 1905 and 1922 and was set in 2 different countries. It is very cleverly written and I will definitely be looking out for more books in this series.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Loved this – first thing I did on finishing, was go to Amazon and order the first book in the series! Set in India in 1922, with flashbacks to London in 1905 it tells the story of Captain Sam Wyndham of the Calcutta police and his competent Junior Officer and friend Surendranath Bannerjee (condescendingly nicknamed ‘Surrender-not’ by the colonials unwilling to make the effort).

Feb 1922: Sam leaves Calcutta to be treated for his opium addiction in an ashram in Assam; he’s been a Calcutta policeman for 4 years. On his journey he sees someone who he thought was dead, who once tried to kill him, causing him to reflect on events when he was a Constable in the East End of London in 1905 resulting in an innocent man receiving the death penalty. He initially blames this sighting on his ‘opium addled’ brain.
But first, he has to deal with his addiction. The small colonial community in Cachar Hills is remote and inescapable - things get messy! A body is found. A crime is to be solved and injustices past and present, put to rights. To the gall of the Brits, Surendranath heads up the investigation.

I loved how this is written, a sort of old-world literary bent to it – poetic and very descriptive, with wonderful witticisms that kept me chuckling. It’s always interesting to read the outrageous attitudes held by the British and how they comported themselves in the colonies. This is a historic crime novel, far from a political commentary - but enough to get your hackles up. As the third book in the series, and with the Indian population taking their lead from Gandhi, we see how ‘Surrender-not’ is beginning to feel able to stand up for himself, to be treated like an equal human being by his British “superiors”- I look forward to this development (and eventual predicted clash) in future stories… Superb reading!

I haven’t read any of the series, however if they are all written like this book, I will become one of its biggest fans! The story was well written about the closed room murder. Loved how the main character also has a side kick whom comes with hi too! Look forward to the next instalment if the series

When a hazy glance of someone who should be dead reminds Sam of the guilt he felt from a failed investigation in London. His past lurks ever closer to his chaotic present in tumultuous 1920’s India while he tries to triumph over his addiction.

This fourth instalment proves with every chapter that Mukherjee is at the pinnacle of current historical crime fiction. Fans will relish the engrossing way that he has delivered a locked room mystery wrapped around the enthralling continued development of our complicated hero and his loyal friend.

I was riveted!