"Is Jack the Ripper at large on the streets of Victorian India?

Hyderabad, India, 1895. When three bodies are discovered with mutilations bearing an eerie resemblance to the Ripper's Whitechapel victims, Chief Inspector Soobramania - known as Soob - is summoned to investigate.

Suspicion alights upon three powerful men: a Russian grand duke and an English earl visiting the city, and their friend, a Deccani noble, who is also the stepson of one of the victims.

Faced with the thorny imperial politics of accusing relatives of Queen Victoria, Soob must ally with his rival in the British Residency Police, Inspector Wilberforce, to hunt down the killer.

So begins a deadly game of cat and mouse played in the shadow of empire, where high birth protects foul deeds and where spilt blood counts for less than wealth.

A richly textured and utterly compelling historical crime thriller from a dazzling debut voice."

Ripperologist here who can't wait to read this!

An outstanding historical novel from a new writer who deserves to be widely read. I thoroughly enjoyed this - the characters, the locations, the period (Victorian India), the plot are all very well presented. I look forward to the sequel and the further crimes faced by Soob and Wilberforce.

With thanks to NetGalley and Canelo Crime for an ARC.

What an intricate, richly-textured mystery, in a well-developed setting that is utterly transporting. Our story unfolds in Hyderabad, India, in 1895, with Acting Chief Inspector Soobramania (“Soob”) racing to solve a string of murders that appear to be in imitation of Jack-the Ripper.

Hyderabad gives us the convergence of Hindu, Muslim, Parsi, and British cultures and I was fascinated by the interplay. Over the course of the investigation, we are given numerous cultural insights thanks to the observations and deductions of our inspector. I particularly appreciated learning more Deccani culture, which was unfamiliar to me, as well as some of the ramifications of traditions revolving around matters of caste.

The writing style is effortless, the kind where pages and pages have turned and you’ve given no thought to sentence structure or voice. It’s simply immersive. At the same time, different characters are given distinct cadence and rhythm that makes it easy to stay oriented. I imagine it will translate nicely to audio.

I was initially intimidated by the extensive Cast of Characters delineated in the beginning, but it was a helpful resource and once I was in the story it proved not to be too complicated.

This was such a treat to read, and I'm thrilled to see "Book 1" in the title, hopefully indicating more installments to come. Thank you so much to Sylashri Shankar for crafting this marvelous story, and to Netgalley and CaneloCrime for the opportunity to review it in advance of publication.

This was a slightly different novel than I was used to reading but managed to pull through and finish it. It's basically a detective story that takes place in India and involves these detective solving a serial murderer. They believe that the killer is a copycat of Jack the Ripper. Overall this novel is pretty good and I would recommend it to anyone to satisfy their curiosity.
I received an arc copy from Netgalley and all opinions are of my own.

I thinl this was a good book. The writing style was fast pace and kept me engaged and I think the world and characters were dynamic and layered in a way that let me learn about new things with each twist and turns. It was a suspenseful and captivating story.

Occasional missteps in consistency and clunky dialogue aside, scholar Shylashri Shankar's fiction debut joins a growing list of mystery novels set in pre-Independence India – the most remarkable aspect being the setting of Hyderabad, one of the largest princely states of the subcontinent. Though the city is today very much an afterthought for outsiders looking in - who tend to see Bombay, Bangalore, Delhi, and Calcutta as the urban mainstays - it was an important centre of power in the region back in the day (the integration with Independent India was a bloody affair, to say the least).

This setting, which sets Shankar's novel apart from the work of Harini Nagendra, Abir Mukherjee, and Sujata Massey, brings a blend of palace intrigue to a bloody mystery starring a London-returned Madras cop, a London-reject British police officer, and a Parsi doctor who is one of two women to practice the profession in late 19th century Hyderabad.

It's solidly written stuff with a bunch of very unique personalities at its centre, though it tends to get a little dull to read the dialogue. The action, however, is unrelenting, and bodies keep piling up, giving the reader much to delight in. Shankar looks critically at some of the cultural practices of the time (a few which sadly continue to prevail) and weaves them into the plot deftly, giving the narrative a lived-in feel.