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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
Captain Sam Wyndham just arrived from Britain to serve as a detective in India. He’s a widower burdened with painful memories of fighting in WWI, and he’s hoping to lose himself in his new job and the new culture surrounding him (and, now and again, his opium addiction). He and his junior officer, Banerjee, are tasked with solving the murder of an English civil servant who was found dead next to a brothel. The case is tightly wound up with the politics of the time. Wyndham has a sufficiently dark past to satisfy readers who like a good guy with rough edges, and Banerjee is a character just begging to be more fully fleshed out in future books. There’s a melancholy, almost noir-ish feel here, but with dashes of Wyndham’s dry humor every now and then, the balance is just right.
One complaint: this is very much a traditional detective novel, and as is typical for the genre, there’s only one significant female character—the rest are caricatures, bit players dismissed for their stupidity, lack of beauty, or both—and even she doesn’t get to be anything more than a pretty vehicle for the hero’s enlightenment.
One complaint: this is very much a traditional detective novel, and as is typical for the genre, there’s only one significant female character—the rest are caricatures, bit players dismissed for their stupidity, lack of beauty, or both—and even she doesn’t get to be anything more than a pretty vehicle for the hero’s enlightenment.
adventurous
dark
informative
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A Rising Man is a historical fiction mystery novel set in Calcutta in early 20th century. Our narrator is the British officer Sam Wyndham, fresh out of the trenches of World War I and the newest recruit to Calcutta's police force. When a senior official of the British Raj is murdered and a note is found on him warning the British to leave India or more deaths will follow, Wyndham is thrust into a world whose politics he doesn't truly understand. Thankfully he has the assistance of Sergeant Bannerjee, one of the few Indian officers in the police force and a significantly more interesting character than Wyndham, to stop him completely botching the entire investigation. This novel was pretty good from a historical fiction perspective, giving insight into the atmosphere in India as British rule begins to crumble. However, it was absolutely dire from a mystery perspective and I found it difficult to retain my interest when Wyndham seemed desperate to do everything but follow incredibly obvious leads to solve a high profile murder. I've heard that the second book in this series is better, but to be honest I have so many more books I'd rather read that I doubt I'll follow up on it.
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
informative
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
On paper this book should be a real set of cliches - a 'damaged detective', a police procedural, a post-WW1 novel, a view of the British Raj - and yet it works really well. What Mukherjee has done is take the best of each genre and mixed it together with a clever plot and the sum is greater that it has any right to be.