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rosseroo 's review for:
A Rising Man
by Abir Mukherjee
Years ago, I tried the first book in the Inspector Rutledge series, having been drawn in by the concept of a veteran of the WWI trenches coming back from the war to be a Scotland Yard detective. That debut didn't really captivate me, so I didn't read further in the series (now at 15 books I think), but the idea of the war vet as detective still captures my imagination. This first in a projected series delivers on the same premise, although here, the hero has shipped out to India to join the colonial police in Calcutta in 1919.
Captain Wyndham provides a literal "fresh off the boat" perspective on the bustling Raj capital for readers, and he's barely installed in a dreary English-run rooming house before being called to his first murder scene. A notable white man has been stabbed outside a brothel in an unseemly part of town, and he has to discover if it was an act of terrorism by Indian freedom fighters or something else altogether.
In order to do so, he is forced upon a crash course in local social mores and politics, some of which are delivered by his English deputy, some by his Indian Sergeant, some by the beautiful Anglo-Indian secretary to the dead man, and some by the various officials he has to navigate en route to the truth. He soon finds himself entangled with military intelligence types and others getting their fingers into the investigation.
In many ways, it's a pretty conventional historical murder mystery, full of red herrings, misdirection, and dastardly villains. I suspect a lot of readers will spot some of these along the way, but it's still a pretty fun read with lots of potential to to grow into a long-running series. Definitely worth reading in conjunction with other fiction or non-fiction about Raj-era India, as it does a very good job showing the shaky moral foundations of that oppression.
Captain Wyndham provides a literal "fresh off the boat" perspective on the bustling Raj capital for readers, and he's barely installed in a dreary English-run rooming house before being called to his first murder scene. A notable white man has been stabbed outside a brothel in an unseemly part of town, and he has to discover if it was an act of terrorism by Indian freedom fighters or something else altogether.
In order to do so, he is forced upon a crash course in local social mores and politics, some of which are delivered by his English deputy, some by his Indian Sergeant, some by the beautiful Anglo-Indian secretary to the dead man, and some by the various officials he has to navigate en route to the truth. He soon finds himself entangled with military intelligence types and others getting their fingers into the investigation.
In many ways, it's a pretty conventional historical murder mystery, full of red herrings, misdirection, and dastardly villains. I suspect a lot of readers will spot some of these along the way, but it's still a pretty fun read with lots of potential to to grow into a long-running series. Definitely worth reading in conjunction with other fiction or non-fiction about Raj-era India, as it does a very good job showing the shaky moral foundations of that oppression.