Words From Vaish

Smoke And Ashes Abir Mukherjee Harvill Secker 2018                                                                                         333 Pages Calcutta, 1921. Captain Sam Wyndham of the British Imperial Police stumbles on the mutilated corpse of a Chinaman near an opium den in the midst of a police raid. However, Captain Wyndham has a serious problem; he’s not there in any official capacity but as an opium addict seeking his next “fix”. And discovery of his hitherto imperfectly concealed addiction could write finis to his career if his brother officers in the police force catch him at it… A psychologically damaged veteran of Military Intelligence in World War 1 whose late, sorely missed wife was a victim of the postwar influenza epidem...

A Murder On Malabar Hill Perveen Mistry Investigates Sujata Massey Penguin Books 2018                                                426 Pages There are some “whodunnits” that greatly benefit from a strong sense of place such as Sherlock Holmes’ fog-shrouded Victorian London of 1897 and the 1930s-1940s California of Raymond Chandler’s private eye Philip Marlowe.  Sujata Massey’s excellent A Murder On Malabar Hill set in 1920s colonial Bombay (now Mumbai) is just such a work. The sights, smells and sounds of this period are so richly evoked that this novel has the heft and feel of an epic, rather than just a simple mystery. The teeming city - with its evocative architecture and cuisine, its social interactions, complex ethnic politic...