Abir Murkherjee: Smoke and Ashes, 9781911215158, Harvill Secker, available

German Edition: Eine Handvoll Asche, 9783453423381, Heyne, Taschenbuch, Mai 2019

 

Abir Murkherjee’s stories set in the 1920 India still being ruled by the British Empire with the two chief protagonists, Captain Sam Wyndham and his quick-witted Indian Sergeant, Surrender-not Banerjee, are currently my favorite historical crime series.  They have everything, tongue in cheek British humor, accurate historical backgrounds, social criticism of both Indian and British society and the plight of Sam’s opium addiction stemming from terrible physical and mental anguish during WWI. I always disappear into these novels with their tight plot and find myself longing for the 4^th sequel just having finished “Smoke and Ashes”.

Sam’s opium addiction is gaining the upper hand in this novel; he can barely conceal his sweats and tremor if he doesn’t get to an opium den at night. During one of these visits he is almost caught in a police raid ordered by none other than his nemesis, Major Dawson, but while escaping he stumbles over a badly mutilated corpse of what appears to be a Chinese man. When he is called to another badly mutilated body the next day, much like the one he believed to have dreamed up in his opium haze, he knows this is no coincidence.  Section H, the secret British police find reason to interrogate him as a warning. At the same time the Prince of Wales is about to visit India and the last thing security forces need is a killer on the loose. The British Secret Service are trying to frame Gandhi and his followers for the murders creating a delicate situation for Banerjee as one of Gandhi’s chief lieutenants on the march of independence is one of his uncles.  The situation escalates when a third victim, a native nurse working for a British government clinical project, is found murdered in the same fashion as the other two victims leading Sam and Banerjee in a completely different direction. And from here on I kept turning the pages even faster.

"Smoke and Ashes" guarantees fabulous historical crime reading and the all the books in the series have a very sound plot.  Please keep them coming Abir Murkherjee, I am addicted!